


Crushing the Code

by ShadowoftheLamp



Category: Danny Phantom, Invader Zim
Genre: Crossover, Minor Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-14
Updated: 2016-05-28
Packaged: 2017-12-15 00:02:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 29,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/842964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowoftheLamp/pseuds/ShadowoftheLamp
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a new kid at Casper High, and he's... different. From his seemingly impossible hair to his odd outfit and unpredictable personality, no one in Amity's ever seen anyone quite like him. Danny tries to befriend the boy, but Dib's got something big he's hiding, and it's going to take someone with a ghostly secret of his own to discover the truth about his new friend's past...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The New Kid in Town

**Author's Note:**

> Okay. So, this story is on fanfiction.net already, and was the only one I decided was even halfway decent enough to come over to this account. The Zim category here is lacking, so I figured I might as well add one of my better stories. I hope you enjoy!

For Danny, it started out like an ordinary day. Wake up at seven fifteen, eat breakfast, fly to school, suck Box Ghost into the thermos on the way there, slide into seat three seconds before the bell rings. The usual. When Mr. Lancer walked into the room, though, there was a tall someone behind him that the boy didn't recognize-everything kind of went for a roller coaster ride after that. All he could see from the side was his long black coat and his backpack, which was metallic silver. It was pretty big, but with straps that tightly cut down into his coat. His hair was combed down, but a large lock of it still flew up into what almost looked like a jagged lightning bolt, a feat which normally would have needed a gallon of hair gel but seemed oddly natural. Mr. Lancer opened his mouth to speak.

"Class, this is Dib Mem-" The kid still hadn't turned his face, but whispered something to Mr. Lancer. "What? But it said- oh, alright. Class, this is Dib Othen. He's a transfer student from out of state." The boy finally turned to face the class, and Danny heard a good few gasps. Dib's skin was bone white, and if Danny didn't see ghosts every day, he'd say pale as one. As it was, vampire seemed more appropriate, considering the long midnight trench coat with an upturned collar. The boy's face was thin, and his round black glasses seemed almost too large, although his eyes did seem a little too big to be natural. He was holding his books tightly to his chest, which Danny found odd for a moment considering his backpack looked pretty full, but he brushed it off. Dib's pants were black, and tight, from the looks of it. They looked almost more like tights. His nearly knee-high boots had silver buckles lining up the outside.

"Hey." Dib greeted. "This is the part when I introduce myself, right? Huh… well, I'm an inventor, and I like working with biology. Any kid of science, really, but my favorite thing is the paranormal. That is, aliens and ghosts and the like." He looked out over the class, his eyes narrowing. The glasses seemed to move with them, making a few kids gasp again. It took Dib a moment to realize what they were worried over. "Oh, these? He took them off, making his eyes seem smaller. "I just improved them so they aren't so annoying. Like I said, I like working with technology." In the third row, Tucker was leaning forward in his seat. "Any questions?"

"Where did you come from?" Nathan asked. Dib blinked.

"It's a comparatively small town-you probably haven't heard of it." Dib mumbled the name, but it was so quiet Danny couldn't hear. It probably wasn't important, although it sounded like it started with a V. Huh.

"You said you liked ghosts, right?" The question came from, of all places, Paulina. Dib raised an eye.

"Yeah…"

"How? Like, as a hunter?" Dib's eyes drifted up at that, as if he was thinking.

"I made a pact to myself to study them, and only eliminate them if they prove to be truly dangerous. Say, I've heard if this Danny Phantom ghost that 'lives' here." Danny's fists tightened oh so slightly on his desk. "He's got a lot of both bad and good publicity, but I'm not going to do anything until I actually meet him. I'm… I'm never going to make the mistake of hurting someone innocent again."

"Again?" Danny didn't remember this girl's name, but he thought it was Samantha or something.

"I really don't want to talk about it." He turned to Mr. Lancer. "Can I sit down?" The teacher scanned the room, before his gaze landed on the empty seat next to Danny.

"You can sit next to Danny. I think you two will find a few things in common." Danny groaned, but Dib just nodded.

"Thank you, Sir."

"Call me Mr. Lancer. Danny can show you around Casper High, and I hope you enjoy your new home." Dib grinned.

"I'm sure I will, but thanks." Dib moved quickly through the aisle, dropping down in the seat next to the halfa. When he sat down, he placed his books on the desk, letting Danny see his shirt clearly. Dib's dark red shirt had a dark green symbol on it that Danny didn't recognize-a circle with a triangle underneath that curved in to adjust to the circle, and a rectangle that curved in on both the top and bottom. Two more small triangles were on top and the ends of the rectangle, their tips slumped over towards the center. He also a black chain around his neck, but whatever was at the end was tucked carefully under his shirt.

"So, Danny then?" The teen nodded as Dib held out a hand. Danny took it, noticing how bony Dib's fingers were.

"Yep. Danny Fenton." He pulled away, noticing Dib still had his backpack on, despite sitting with his back to the chair. "Say, isn't that uncomfortable?" He pointed to the pack. Dib ran his finger along the left strap, shrugging.

"Nah. So, what do you think he was talking about, us 'having a few things in common'?" Danny thought about that.

"I don't know… Tucker's the techno geek." He pointed to his friend. "I'll introduce you later. I guess it has to be…" Danny tapped his chin, before deciding to just pull out the one connection he could think of. "Well, my parents are ghost hunters."

"Really?" Dib's eyes, which Danny suddenly noticed were hazel, glittered. "Do you think I could talk to them?"

"Well, I dunno…" Danny rubbed the back of his neck nervously. "They're pretty solidly into the 'shoot first, ask questions later' camp, especially my dad."

"Still, if I'm going to live here-" They both jumped at a sharp call from the teacher.

"Danny! Dib! I know Mr. Othen is new, but he  _should_  know not to talk in class." Dib quickly nodded, letting his head droop. Suddenly, the boy's head bobbed back up again, and Dib bit his lip. He drummed his fingers against the desk, closing his eyes tightly.

"Dib? You okay?" Danny asked, his voice laced with concern. The other teen rapidly shook his head, placing a hand to his skull.

"Yeah, fine." Dib opened his eyes. Danny could've sworn that they were almost pink, but when Dib shifted his head they were back to brown so he passed it off as a trick of the light. Dib picked up his pencil and started playing with it.

"So, what are we learning?" Danny squinted up at the board.

"Science, chemical structure I think." Dib perked up.

"Oh, I know all about that! After the bologna incident I had to-" His eye twitched. "No, don't think about that… anyway, if you need any help." He pulled out a doodled-on notebook that said 'property of Dib Membrane, East Hi Skool' Danny blinked to make sure he was reading it right. The name Dib had written on the line was wrong, not to mention the typed sticker spelled high school funny.

"Hey, Dib-" Dib looked at the cover, his eyes widening at the name.

"Oops." He used his pen to scribble out the name and write Dib Othen above it.

"Did your parents divorce or something?" Danny asked. It seemed like the most logical explanation, although it didn't explain the odd misspelling… Dib suddenly clenched his notebook tightly, and when he spoke, it was through gritted teeth.

"No… I don't have a mom…"

"Oh, man, I'm sorry!" Danny quickly apologized. "I had no idea-"

"It's okay." Dib answered, his grip loosening a little. "It's just… I'm not on very good terms with my…  _father_." Even if he hadn't mentioned that they didn't get along, the way he packed poison into the last word made it quite obvious. Danny rubbed the back of his neck. He wasn't quite sure what to say, but Dib took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

"Okay, okay…" He blinked a few times before turning back to Danny. "Sorry… it's just…"

"It's fine." Danny said, a little too quickly. Dib grinned nervously, revealing semi-crooked teeth.

"Thanks. Can we just drop it?" Danny nodded as Dib faced forward, squinting at the board before scribbling something down.

"No, that's not…. okay…" He'd actually bit his tongue, and Danny resisted the urge to laugh before pulling out his own notebook.

"Mind if I take you up on that offer of help?" Dib looked up at Danny, his eyes wide.

"Really?" Danny nodded. "What can I help with?" Dib sounded excited.

"Well, I'm not sure how these two chemicals can bond when they seem so different…" Dib blinked, an even wider grin spreading across his face.

"You definitely asked the right person…"

* * *

Twenty minutes later, Danny had learned more from Dib then he had in two weeks from textbooks. When the teen asked the new boy how he knew it so well, he was only rewarded with a smirk and the words 'personal experience'. Now, Danny was showing Dib around the school between first and second periods.

"So, where's your locker?" Dib checked his note.

"Uh, seven twenty two." Danny almost laughed. Two lockers over, and Dib might've had a few more issues… he'd destroyed the mirror, sure, but Poindexter had gotten through before without it.

"That's that one." Danny pointed.

"The rusty one?"

"No, two over." Dib sighed in relief before walking over and fiddling with the lock for a moment. It took two tries before yielding to the boy. Dib shoved his science book in, curling his arm protectively around the others. Danny decided to use this moment to ask.

"Why don't you put your books in your backpack?" Dib visibly tensed.

"Well, I, uh, already have stuff in there."

"Like what?" Danny was honestly curious now.

"Nothing you need to worry abou-" Suddenly, a sickeningly familiar voice came from down the hall.

"Hey, Fen-toad!" Danny sighed heavily. Great. Now he was going to get beat up  _and_  humiliated in front of the new kid in one. Dib looked up, squinting down the hall.

"Who's that?" Danny quickly provided the answer as the bully came into view.

"Dash Baxter, school quarterback and guy who lives making my life miserable." To Danny's surprise, Dib dropped his books, his eyes and fingers twitching. "Uh, Di-"

"Ready for your daily locker stuffing?" Dash asked, finally reaching Danny. Danny gulped, mentally cursing as always not being able to use his ghost powers to get out of this. However, a wall of black suddenly darted in front of him.

"No, he's not. Are you?" came Dib's voice, but it sounded… different. More serious, but also with a touch of a strange loopiness Danny couldn't place. Dash just laughed.

"Who are you, shrimp?"

"…Dib." The boy said after a moment's pause, like it took him a second to remember to his own name. Dash merely started laughing again.

"What kind of name is that?"

"What kind of name is Dash?" Dib quickly countered. "It sounds like a tiny pinch of spices- and your spice is too sour for anyone, worm." There were a good few gasps at that-no one insulted Dash Baxter like that, especially in public. The jock's mouth hung open, before he practically growled, frowning.

"Now you're gonna get it!" Dib just yawned.

"Right." Danny felt like strangling Dib. What was he  _doing_? Dash swung his fist at the skinny boy, but faster than Danny could see Dib darted forward and grabbed it, bending it forward. Dash's eyes widened and he yelped, too surprised to suppress it. Dib gripped the taller boy's fist and ducked around, twisting Dash's arm up behind the football player's back. He pushed up gingerly and Dash practically whimpered.

"Let go!" Dib pushed up a little harder, eliciting another short cry from the bulky teen, before letting go. He quickly shifted around so he was at Dash's front side again, to see the boy's eyes were on the edge of watering from the pain.

"Don't mess with me  _or_  my friends, got that?" Dib said sharply to Dash, glaring right up into the boy's wide blue eyes. Dash nodded quickly before turning and racing off. When Danny turned to Dib with an open mouth, he saw the boy's irises were red for a split second before Dib took a deep breath, closing his eyes. When he reopened them a second later, they were back to the hazel color Danny had known before. While most of the staring kids in the hallway were focused on Dib, who had turned to grab his books, there was only one thing running through Danny's head.

_Who… IS this kid?_

_  
_


	2. Truces, Talks, and Truths

Danny just stared at Dib, who was calmly shutting his locker like nothing had happened.

"Dude, how did you-"

"Look, I don't want to talk about it, okay?" Dib said, sounding irritated.

"You just won in a fight against Dash in like fifteen seconds!" Danny argued. "That just doesn't happen!"

"I've had a lot of training, okay? Happy?" Dib sighed. "I left my old town to get away from this, but it seems I always run straight into trouble, if it helps someone. I just want to be  _normal_  for once!" The boy accented his point by pounding his fist into his locker door on 'normal'. It left a dent in the metal, which Dib didn't even seem to notice. "So can you  _please_  drop it?" Realizing that pushing any further would only push the boy away, and after all he  _had_  decided to protect him from Dash, even though he'd just met him, Danny nodded before replying slowly.

"Well, okay…" Dib smiled weakly.

"Thanks." Suddenly, the bell rang. "See you." Dib hurried down the hall before Danny could say anything else. Shrugging, Danny headed the other way. He'd have time to figure the other teen out later.

By the time lunch rolled around, Danny had just about forgotten about Dib. When he grabbed his hamburger from the old lunch lady, though, he saw the boy three spaces in front of him. He had a bag lunch, but was just in line for milk Danny realized as the boy grabbed a white carton and walked over to one of the only empty tables. Danny grabbed a carton of his own before sitting down at his usual table. He took an absent bite from his burger, watching Dib. The boy pulled out a sandwich, but after he took a bite and swallowed he grimaced and started whispering to himself. By his facial expressions, it was like he was talking to someone only he could see.

"What's with him?" Danny wondered aloud. On some level, it was funny-the kid who had probably the biggest secret on the planet wondering what another kid was hiding.

"What's with who?" Came a familiar female voice. Danny turned to see Sam sit down next to him, lunch bag in hand. Tucker was a few steps behind her, and plopped down across the table with his tray.

"The new kid-Dib." Danny answered, pointing discreetly. Sam and Tucker both turned to the boy-by this time, he'd raised his voice enough so kids at a few other tables were turning and looking. Blushing, the pale boy shrank down in his seat for a moment before grabbing his bag and walking out of the lunchroom.

"I heard that he actually beat up Dash!" Tucker said excitedly. Danny just shook his head.

"No, he only twisted up his arm. He moved really fast thou-" Suddenly, blue mist wafted out of Danny's mouth. He sighed, ducking under the table before muttering 'Going ghost!' In a matter of seconds, Danny Phantom shot through the tabletop, still invisible while he searched for the ghost. He didn't want to attract attention any more then he had to, especially after what happened with Amorpho... After a minute of floating aimlessly around the surrounding rooms, he finally spotted the Box Ghost in the library, tipping over the cartons of newly arrived books.

"Oh, just you." The annoying blue ghost looked up, spotting Danny as the boy flickered into visibility.

"Yes! It is I, the Box Ghost, and I shall-"

"Yeah, yeah, rule us all with your deadly boxes." Danny interrupted, pulling out the thermos and yawning. "I'm just going to make this quick." The ghost tried to dodge, but was quickly sucked into the thermos for the hundredth time. Danny capped it as trails of blue smoke wafted from the container. "He's always-"

"Hello, Phantom." Danny slowly turned around at the recognizable voice. His ears weren't deceiving him as he saw Dib in the entrance to the library. He hadn't even bothered with any sort of disguise like Valerie had, merely pulling off his trench coat. To Danny's surprise, he was wearing something under his very short sleeved shirt-black long sleeves with triangular shoulder pads and thin barely- distinguishable dark blue lines running horizontally up the arms. He was also displaying a necklace with a copy of the symbol on his shirt, but in shiny metallic silver. It was attached to the black chain he'd had tucked under his shirt before.

"Hello, citizen." Danny said easily. "And you are…?" Dib grinned.

"The name's Dib." He closed his eyes for a moment, before reaching into his backpack. He pulled out a fairly small ecto-gun, but it had odd coloration- dark blue, with streaks of dark pink and lilac.

"Where'd you get that?" Danny taunted, not willing to believe Dib could create a fully functioning gun without any sort of back notes and years of experience like his parents had. "Ghost hunters R Us?"

"I don't want to use this, but if you make me…" Dib reached into his backpack again, and this time pulled out a small Frisbee. He tossed it into the air, before taking aim. When he squeezed the trigger, a bright light appeared at the end of the gun, before shooting toward the disk. It hit near the left edge, but a second after it landed the Frisbee lit up and dissolved into ash. Danny looked back down to Dib, his toxic green eyes wide and a cold chill spiraling up his core.

"H-how did you- where did you-" Dib's grin widened.

"I have technology others can only dream of. But as I said, I'll only use this if necessary. I have a few questions is all…" Dib twitched his finger off the gun, clicking a button on the back Danny could only hope was the safety.

"…Okay, you've got my attention…" Danny said slowly, holding up his hands, including the one with the thermos.

"You can put your hands down." Dib said, laughing lightly. "I'm not the police." Danny dropped his arms.

"So, you have questions?" Danny prompted wanting to get this over with as quickly as possible.

"Oh, right." Dib reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a small, Nancy-Drew looking notebook. He rummaged around for a moment, before coming out with a blue pencil. "My first question you can probably guess… how'd you die?" Danny thought for a moment.

"Electrocution." He answered finally. Might as go with the half-truth… Dib scribbled it down.

"Why do you help people?" Once again, Danny had to think for a moment-he knew his answer still had to sound like something a ghost would say.

"Well, since all ghosts used to be people, I don't see why we have to hurt them…" Dib scrawled that down too.

"What's with the symbol?" Danny puffed up his chest.

"Hey, all superheroes need a signature!" Dib chuckled.

"Point taken. What happened during the incident where you kidnapped the mayor?" Danny's eyes widened-he knew about that? Then again, it was obvious the other boy had done his research if he had such an efficient weapon…

"I was framed. Another ghost had a grudge against me and overshadowed the mayor."

"And the raids?" It took a Danny a moment to realize what that one was, but once he realized he gritted his teeth.

"I was controlled. An evil ringmaster had a ghost controlling staff, none of us knew what we were doing..." Dib seemed to ponder on that for a moment.

"I remember there was an article on that one ringmaster who was found with all of that stolen gold… Freakshow, wasn't it?" Danny nodded vigorously.

"One of the worst human enemies I have." Dib raised an eye, his glasses once again moving with it.

"'Human' enemies?" Danny waved his hand.

"What, you think I can fight ghosts and not pick up a few rivals?" Dib chuckled.

"Point taken again. So, one last question for now… do you think you're a good ghost or a bad one?"

"Good!" Danny said instantly. "I'm the good guy! Does that mean you won't try to shoot me every time you see me?" Dib made one last note before tucking the notebook into his pocket.

"Maybe." He grinned up at Danny. "I'll still have an eye on you, but for now, I'm perfectly willing to call a truce. You don't hurt me, I won't hurt you. Deal?" Danny grinned too, nodding as he floated down, setting his boots on the floor and placing himself at eye level with Dib.

"Deal!" Dib held out a hand, and Danny quickly shook it.

"You know, you're probably the most open-minded ghost hunter I've ever met." Danny said to the boy. Dib smiled at him, a genuine one.

"I try… I try to find the similarities between humans and paranormal entities. No way I'm making  _that_  mistake ever again." He winced. Danny saw another opportunity to try and get more information on Dib's past, and his curiosity was flaring higher than ever.

"Mistake?" Dib gave him an odd look, his head slightly tilted and his eyes halfway between lazy and wide.

"I knew another… paranormal creature, but we were enemies. He turned out to be decent once I really got to know him, but then something happened. I vowed to not judge anything paranormal as evil right away now unless given a solid reason."

"Who was he?"

"That's for me to know, and you to not find out." Dib answered bluntly. "I'm sure I'll see you soon." Knowing the moment had passed, Danny nodded.

"Right." He turned invisible and floated up, while Dib turned and left the library. Danny looked around, but there was no one else in the room-lucky, he supposed. Vowing to find out more about this 'other paranormal entity' later, Danny flew back to the cafeteria, phased through the table, then switched back and popped up as Fenton.

"Who was it? Skulker?" Sam asked.

"No, just Box Ghost again…"

"Then why'd it take so long?" Tucker chipped in.

"Because there's a new kid with ghost hunting equipment in town." Danny said, looking to the doors as Dib walked back in, trench coat on once again. Sam and Tucker's eyes widened in unison.

"He's a ghost hunter?" Sam hissed to Danny.

"No, and that's the weird part… he only wanted to ask me a few questions then we shook on a truce. No, what I'm worried about is that the gun he had was way more advanced than anything my parents-or even Valerie-have. It turned a Frisbee to ashes, working from the inside out. It's years ahead of anything I've ever seen." Sam bit her lip.

"Are you sure?" Across the room, Dib had sat back down at his table, and was eating his sandwich, looking completely innocent. However, at the popular table, there were a lot of points, especially from Kwan and Paulina. They seemed to be laughing at Dash being hurt by someone who looked so wimpy.

"I know my ghost equipment. Trust me. I think he had some sort of uniform on too- he had black triangle shoulder pads and long sleeves with blue stripes on under his coat."

"Huh… That's weird. Maybe it's some kind of fashion where he's from?" Sam suggested.

"Then why would he wear his coat over it?" Tucker argued. Danny was still wondering who the other 'him' had been.

"I guess he didn't want to hunt ghosts because he met some other paranormal being and they were enemies, until they got to know each other. I wonder what it was?" Danny said, causing Sam and Tucker to look up.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, he said it was paranormal… so that leaves ghosts, vampires, zombies, bigfoot, aliens…" Danny ticked off all that he could think of on his fingers. "I kind of doubt zombies and bigfoot, so that leaves ghosts, vampires, and aliens, and anything I'm forgetting."

"They all kind of make sense…" Tucker said, scratching his head.

"Maybe you could ask him what he liked studying before?" Sam suggested. Danny's eyes drifted to Dib again, who was now studying his little notebook and was doodling something.

"Yeah, that's a good idea…" Danny decided to ask Dib in the next class they had together.

"So, what did the Box Ghost want this time?" Sam asked, changing the subject.

"The boxes in the library. What else?" Danny said, steering his attention from the skinny teen in the corner. Sam grinned.

"Should've guessed. So, what did you get for those chemical equations in science?" Tucker asked, leaning over. Danny pulled out his notebook.

"Okay, see, this is where I had this wrong…" The boy started, pointing at something he'd corrected.

* * *

After lunch, Danny had math. Luckily, Miss. Bellintine was only reviewing a test from the day before. When Dib wandered in, about three minutes into class, Danny grinned, waving. Dib waved back as the teacher introduced him. A few of the kids started whispering, the rumors already clearly spreading. Dib looked a bit put off, but when Miss. Bellintine said he could choose his seat he quickly took one right behind Danny.

"Hey. So, how are you adjusting?" Danny asked.

"Great!" Dib said. "Everyone here is much friendlier then at my old skool!"

_I wonder why he puts emphasis on the 'ch' part…?_  "Cool! What was your old school like?" Dib rolled his eyes.

"You  _don't_  want to know. Hi skool was a bit better then elementary skool, but then again, I was only in hi skool for about two months… that's when I moved."

"Do you have any siblings?" Danny inquired, tilting his head a little.

"Yeah, a younger sister." Dib started playing with his pencil again.

"I have an older one, Jazz. She's training to be a psychiatrist… " Danny huffed out air. "She's a great sister, but sometimes she takes herself way too seriously."

"Mine's addicted to video games and has a wicked uppercut." Dib paused. "Do you think I could talk to your sister?"

"Why?"

"Because… just... new-kid stuff." Danny shrugged.

"Sure-she probably won't mind. She loves talking to other kids." Dib nodded.

"Cool."

"Mr. Fenton, Mr. Othen, I know this is just a review, but I'd appreciate if you didn't talk." The teacher said, interrupting.

"It's okay, he was just explaining what the test was about." Dib said quickly. "My old skool was a little behind yours."

"Oh. Good for you, Danny! Carry on then, you two." Miss. Bellintine said, smiling. Dib smiled back at her, before turning right back to Danny.

"The teachers are a definite plus of this school. Then again, I don't have the greatest to compare to… I had some of the worst teachers ever." Danny laughed.

"What were they, demons?"

"Yeah, how did you guess?" Danny laughed more for a second, until he saw Dib's totally straight face. He stopped laughing right away.

"…You're serious?"

"Yeah… she couldn't go out in sunlight, and she melted in and out of shadows. Not to mention she terrified all of us, even Z-" Dib quickly stopped himself.

"Who?" Danny asked.

"…An old friend of mine. Well, more of a frien-emy…" Dib shrugged. "You know the type." Danny nodded.

"Yeah. What was his name?" Dib seemed to consider for a moment before shrugging.

"Zim. It was Zim."

Danny's first thought was that all people from Dib's old town had weird names. His second thought was that it was possible this 'Zim' was the 'him' Dib had mentioned before."Did you have many friends at your old school?" Danny asked. That earned a rough chuckle from Dib.

"Nope. None, really. Zim was the only one who paid any attention to me. Then again, we spent most of the time at each other's throats…"

"I see what you mean by frien-emies then." Danny noted. "What was he like?"

"Well…" Dib paused, closing his eyes. He tapped his pencil on his desk a few times. "Well, he was loud.  _Very_  loud. I think he was trying to make up for being kind of little-he never grew an inch after I met him. He was the shortest kid by graduation, by far." Dib winced for a second, his eyes still closed. "He was smart though-really smart. He looked and acted different from everyone else in skool in quite a few ways… his huge ego and personality were practically out of this world." Dib chuckled, like he was enjoying a private joke. "I think we hated each other because we were pretty similar. Neither of us were people persons, and we were the only ones who could even stand each other for how much time we technically spent together." Dib opened his eyes again, but they were still far away.

"I guess he was important to you, huh." Danny said slowly. "It's too bad you had to leave him when you moved."

"No, it's okay. We ended up getting pretty close near the end, though, I'd say." He grinned again. Danny was now just about convinced that Zim was the one Dib had mentioned earlier. "You know when someone really made a mark on you, that they never really leave you?" Danny nodded. "Well, that's the case…" Danny nodded again.

"What else did you do back at your old home?" Dib tapped his chin thoughtfully.

"Well, I did spend most of my time tracking down anything paranormal I could find…"

"Like what?" Dib gave him a sideways look.

"Why are you so interested?" Danny shrugged.

"Hey, I live in a town full of ghosts. Anything along those lines that's not ghosts is still interesting." Luckily, Dib bought it and grinned.

"It's just… I'm not used to people being interested in my work. My sister was all right with it, as it kept me busy and away from her, but my da-" He cut off, curling his fingers around his desk's edge. "…" Danny blinked.

_Oh, he must be on bad terms with his dad because he didn't like him studying this stuff… maybe because it was too dangerous or something?_  Danny guessed.

"A-anyway, I spent a lot of time hiding in bushes and stuff, chasing after bigfoot babies. I almost got one too, when I was seven, but that memory's kind of fuzzy… I never knew why, but it could have something to do with the fact I fell off the water tower and nearly broke my spine." Danny's eyes widened.

"Wow… ouch…" Dib just chuckled.

"Yeah, my sister dragged me the half mile to the hospital. I think she kind of shocked the doctors…" He smiled weakly. "Even if we didn't always get along, she did get me out of the really deadly situations." Danny could hear a hint of fondness in Dib's voice and smiled back.

"What else did you study?"

"Well, before I moved here I didn't have much experience with ghosts. My fortes were zombies-don't try to make them, by the way, it gets messy-bigfoot, moth men, and aliens. Space was always a love of mine." Danny's grin widened.

"Really? I've always wanted to be an astronaut! You study the stars?" Dib laughed.

"Study? I've been up there!" Danny's eyes widened.

"Really? How? We're fourteen!"

"Well-" Suddenly, he cut off, looking vaguely like he'd just been punched in the face. "…Nothing."

"Aw, c'mon!" Danny practically begged. He'd been up in space too, but he hadn't had time to enjoy it, as he'd been trying to beat Technus and was attempting to avoid Valerie's new suit. If Dib had any way he could do it as a human, it would be amazing.

"It was just a one time thing, and I was too busy to enjoy it at all. I shouldn't have even brought it up." Dib said quickly. Danny sighed.

"Well, okay…"

"Where do you live?" Dib asked suddenly.

"Uh, we live a few blocks away from the Nasty Burger. It's got the huge neon Fentonworks sign on top, you can't miss it. Why?"

"I think I'm going to see if I can talk to your sister. Thanks." Dib turned down to his notebook and started scribbling something. Danny could make out the words 'ghost' and 'unusually human'. He figured Dib was making more notes on Danny Phantom, and turned around. It was probably safe to assume their conversation was over.


	3. Do You Believe in Aliens?

Danny only had one more class with Dib, and that was gym. They were too busy trying to dodge the balls to talk to each other, although Dib did mention that it was easier here then something Danny swore he called 'bludgeon ball'. Dib had exceptionally fast reflexes, making him the second to last out. Surprisingly, it was Sam who'd made it the longest. Dib finally got hit in the arm, leaving the goth girl the winner. Dib looked almost angry for a moment, before he smiled and walked forward, his hand held out to shake. Sam took it, smiling back.

"You're pretty good. Did you do a lot of sports at your old school?"

"No, but I did a whole lot of ducking and dodging…" Dib admitted, smirking. He let go of Sam's hand. "You're pretty good yourself." He nodded, walking back to the end of the line. Sam blinked, walking over to Danny.

"You're right… there's something off about that kid."

* * *

When Danny got home, Jazz was just pulling in, her pink car sliding to a stop.

"Hey Danny!" She greeted.

"Hey, Jazz." He waved. "By the way, there's a new kid at school, and-"

"Ooh, a new kid? Is he nice?"

"Yeah… but he's-"

"But what?" Danny frowned.

"But he's got ghost hunting equipment. He agreed to a truce at school with Danny Phantom. He wanted to talk to you when I was talking to him as Fenton."

"What? Me?" She sounded confused as she stepped out of the car, setting a hand on her chest. "Why would he want to-"

"I mentioned you wanted to be a psychiatrist, and he said he'd rather talk to you, especially since Spectra left we don't have a counselor. Then again, no counselor is better than her…" Danny shuddered-Spectra was definitely creepy, and he'd never forgotten what it felt like to be 'drained' of uncertainty.

"Yeah. She was certainly creepy…" Jazz agreed. "And okay, I'd be glad to talk to him."

"Well, that's good." Suddenly appeared Dib's voice form behind Danny. He was a few feet behind the boy. Danny jumped, surprised.

"Whoa! Did you follow me all the way home?" Dib shrugged, nodding.

"Yeah."

"…You could have asked to walk  _with_  me…" Dib shrugged again.

"Doesn't matter now. So, this is your sister?" Danny nodded.

"Yeah, this is Jazz." Dib held out his hand.

"Pleased to meet you." She shook slowly.

"Really, why did you follow me?"

"I didn't want to get lost?" Danny sighed.

"Fine, I'll show you in, then you can talk to Jazz, okay?" Dib nodded, before looking up.

"Nice sign." He laughed. Danny laughed too.

"My dad put it up about six years ago, when he started making more weapons."

"Oh, that's right! You said your parents were ghost hunters, right?" Danny nodded.

"Yeah, and-"

"Well, hello there!" The front door flew open, and Maddie stepped out, in full hazmat suit. "Who are you?"

"Hi, I'm Dib. I just moved here."

"Welcome to Amity Park then!" She smiled warmly, pulling off her hood and extending an arm. Dib stepped forward and shook her black-gloved hand. "Have you ever seen a ghost before?"

"Actually, I have… there were a few in a haunted house in my old town. And I saw that Danny Phantom at the school." Danny stiffened.

"That horrid ghost? He's a menace!" Dib shook his head slowly.

"He was pretty nice to me…"

"That's just a cover, I know it."

"Have you ever tried actually being nice to him? Who knows… he seemed pretty humanlike to me, and he does help the town it seems…" Danny stepped forward, before leaning up to Dib's ear.

"They've hated him since he first appeared; it's no use trying to reason with either of them. They keep saying he's their worst enemy." Danny sighed, but Dib seemed to get the picture and shut up.

"Do you think I could see your equipment?" The boy suddenly asked.

"Really?" Dib nodded.

"I just find it interesting."

"Well, I'm sure Jack would be glad to-"

"Mom, do you think that could wait?" Jazz interrupted. "He wanted to talk with me, and you know how dad tends to go on…" Maddie smiled.

"All right. We'll be waiting downstairs, sweetie. I'll make some snacks." She waved at Dib one more time before walking into the house.

"Your mom is really nice." Dib noted.

"Yeah, until she's aiming a gun at you…" Danny muttered.

"What?"

"Nothing…"

"Okay. So, Jazz…?" Dib asked, hesitating. She smiled encouragingly at the boy.

"C'mon up to my room, and make yourself cozy." She walked into the house, with Dib and Danny following. When they made it up to Jazz's room, (with Dib again noticing that they had a nice house) she walked right in. Dib looked around before following. Danny made a move to step in too, but Jazz closed the door on his face.

"Sorry Danny, but this might be private." The boy frowned for a moment before shrugging and going ghost.

_Advantage-ghost kid._  He grinned, right walking through the door, invisible. Dib was looking around nervously, seated at Jazz's desk. His sister was on her bed.

"Okay, you've got to promise me you'll never tell anyone what I'm going to say to you, okay? I promise it won't hurt anyone or anything, but I... I just need to tell someone." Jazz immediately nodded, pulling out a notebook.

"I pro-" Dib smacked the pad out of her hands.

"No notes either, okay?" Jazz looked a little more nervous now.

"Okay… so. What did you want to talk about?"

"Can I ask you a question first?" She nodded.

"Sure, what?"

"Do you…" Dib took a long, deep breath. "Do you believe in aliens?" Jazz raised an eye.

"I've never really thought about it before… I suppose it makes sense that there's intelligent life out there somewhere." Dib smiled weakly.

"Good. That makes this easier." He started rooting around in his trench coat pocket, and finally came out with what looked like a picture. He handed it to Jazz, who immediately gasped. Danny floated over, careful not to let his feet touch the floor lest he make some sort of noise. He had to cover his mouth in order not to gasp too. The photo was taken in front of a long rectangular building with the words 'Hi Skool' printed on it. (Danny now knew where the sticker on Dib's notebook had come from.) However, the surprising part was not the misspelling; it was the scowling boy in front of it.

The (child?) had his arms crossed. Although his black hair up in a cowlick indicated he was a boy, he was wearing what very closely resembled a dark pink dress. The arms had the same triangular pads Danny had seen on Dib's sleeves, along with thin black stripes encircling the paler pink arm that lead to long black gloves. There was something silver behind his back-it was probably a small backpack. He wore tight pants and tall boots, but the strangest part about him was his face-and his skin. He had no ears or nose, and the color of his skin was light green. His blue eyes were narrowed and he held a scowl that looked out of place on such a small and thin and overall fragile looking creature.

"That picture was taken about a month ago. It took me a while to convince him to actually let me take a picture, considering he was still paranoid I was trying to turn him in. That was the last day either of us went to that skool, officially anyway." Dib sighed. "But then, I should start at the beginning, shouldn't I?" He settled back on the chair. Jazz was still staring at the photo.

"It started six months before the beginning of fifth grade-near the end of fourth. I'm a bit of a paranormal freak, and my favorite subject was always aliens. I loved the stars-how they seemed to stay the same, yet be so different every night." Danny silently agreed. "I always listened for any sort of messages, just in case, and that night, I heard something. It didn't make sense to me for a long time afterword… even when I'd met him, it took actually getting to know him to realize what the second line meant." He sucked in a deep breath. "It said… 'The universe is ours for the taking. All The races of the universe will serve the Irken empire!' Then there was a second voice that added 'I'll make them serve us curly fries!' I found out later that their race loves snacks, so that made sense. Anyways… I waited. I knew they were coming, I just didn't know when. I prepared myself in any way I could, but by the time skool rolled back around I'd started losing hope. What If they'd landed somewhere else on the planet, like China or something? What if earth had only gotten the message as a fluke? What if they meant to flat wipe out everything without even landing, giving us no chance? Then… He came." Dib smiled.

"Him?" Jazz said, pointing to the picture." Dib nodded.

"His name was Zim." Danny bit his lip-he'd been right. "From the second I saw him, I knew. There was no doubt, none. As soon as he spoke, too, it sealed the deal even further. His first words to the class were…" Dib paused again. "'Hello. I am a perfectly normal human worm baby, and you have nothing, absolutely nothing to fear from me. Just pay no attention to me and we'll get along just fine.' Of course, morons that they were, every single kid fell for it." Jazz's eyes widened.

"What? No one-"

"No one." Dib said, sighing. "I think living in as polluted a place as we did fried their brain cells. I pointed out his skin color- skin condition. No ears-also part of his skin condition. He got them on his side the first day, and no matter how much proof was shoved in their faces they always looked the other way. I mean, one time he was actually abducted right from the classroom by a member of his race and no one so much as flinched!" Jazz winced.

"And you tried to prove he was an alien?"

"Yep. We became sworn rivals, and fought nearly every day. He fought dirty, and had the advantage of technology, but I could usually guess his plans and didn't have a robot that messed everything up. When he didn't use his weapons, it was pretty even. For nearly two years, we hated each other, always trying to get the other to slip up. Dissection threats were pretty common, and once he actually succeeded." Dib pulled up his shirt, revealing a long scar along his chest that reached down to a few inches above his pants. It looked like he didn't have a belly button. Jazz put a hand to her mouth.

"But then… when did you move? And this picture?" She held it up again. Dib sighed heavily.

"One day, he pushed back harder than he ever had before. I broke an arm, lost two teeth, and had so many cuts I nearly bled out. He almost let me die, but put me in some sort of healing chamber. I wanted to know why-why he'd hurt me so badly. I knew why he helped me-when either of us were too close to death, the other helped. It had always been that way, neither of us knew why... Anyway, I made it my mission to get it out of him-bugging him as much as I could. Finally, three days later, I had him pinned to the side of the skool with a ray to his head, and he told me to pull the trigger." Dib sucked in another breath. "At that moment, I stopped being his enemy. He confessed his leaders had told him that he's taken too long, and was now stranded on earth. He'd tried desperately to call them back, but he'd been blocked. When he checked, his cruiser had been remote destructed, leaving him truly stuck. He decided that he'd kill me, then kill himself. He thought it would be the best way to at least regain some of his dignity. When he told me, I offered to help him adjust to earth-and stop trying to expose him- if he'd stop trying to conquer earth and told me about other species. It was a pretty good trade, and for about two months everything was great. Once we got used to actually being nice to each other- well, we still called each other names, but other than that- we were barely apart. We even got a few 'boyfriends' taunts, until Zim beat the living daylights out of them. We were left alone after that. Until…" Dib closed his eyes.

"Something happened." Jazz guessed, and Dib nodded slowly.

"I was part of a secret organization called the Swollen Eyeballs-a team of paranormal investigators. I'd always reported any new information on him, but when I hadn't called for two months, Darkbootie-my mentor in the Network-got worried. He thought Zim had captured me, and got a team together to storm his base. We were actually playing video games, and I think he was winning… one moment, he was rubbing it in my face, the next, he was screaming as he was restrained. By the time Darkbootie actually got down to see I was fine, Zim was gone." Dib paused. "I tried to go to headquarters to get them to set him free, but they weren't having it. Now that there was a real alien in their clutches, they weren't letting him go. Zim… he thought it was all my fault. That I'd set him up from the start. And so, he implemented revenge."

"Revenge?"

"Yes, revenge. He was a master at it, even if he did tend to go overboard. I threw meat at him? He turned me into living bologna. I threw a stinkin' muffin at him? He played out my entire dream life-and I thought it was real-before yanking it all away. It took me a week to get over that-you have no idea what it's like to have the perfect life, and then it all disappears while you have to go back to hellish reality." Jazz nodded.

"I know mind deceptions can be the worst." He smiled weakly at her.

"Anyway, this time his revenge was something like this-if I'd betrayed him, then obviously I didn't care about him and wanted to forget everything. So, he made it so I could never forget him in probably the worst of ways. You see, his body was only something to carry an Irken supercomputer called a Pak around. However, it was a major weakness; because Zim's biological body could only survive for ten minutes without the Pak to stabilize it. The Pak held, in essence, Zim-his personality, his memories, his translator, everything. I'd stolen it once, and it ended up with me building a super robot, completely controlled by the Pak, and Zim on death's door a drooling moron. Luckily, he managed to pull it off in the nick of time, saving both our lives as the Pak doesn't accept non-Irken DNA."

"Back to recently… unfortunately, he was a bit of a technical genius… and he reprogrammed it to accept my DNA. I'd come to try and apologize, but the Pak got to me first- Zim's biological body had died from the ten minutes of being separated, but the Zim I knew was still very much there, just in the Pak. He got into my head and discovered that it had indeed been an ambush, but it was too late-I couldn't take off the Pak without dying, and he couldn't go back to his now-deceased usual body." Dib reached over to his backpack, and after a moment, yanked it off. The gun fell out, but there was a massive hole in the back of the material. It made room for the slick piece of machinery attached to Dib's back. It looked a bit like a large metal bowl with big pink dots, but from the way his coat bunched up, it obviously went into his back-and possibly his spine. Jazz's eyes widened even further.

"After that happened," Dib continued. "It was… hard to get used to having a half-insane alien on my back. I went a little nuts… but then… something else happened. I… really don't want to say, if you don't mind. Let's just say it was the straw that broke the camel's back-or rather, the two ton weight. I packed up my stuff, took some money from my bank account-Membrane's pretty filthy rich, he wouldn't notice for a while-and moved here."

"You're  _alone_  now?" Jazz gasped. Dib shrugged.

"I used Tak's ship-she's another alien, long story short her ship crashed in my yard and I got it working-and turned on the stealth. I landed on the outskirts of town, got an apartment, and decided to try and start over. For years, I'd been nothing but the crazy kid. I wanted to be useful, a new Dib. So, I started studying ghost hunting. Zim helped me build a weapon and I decided to try and make treaties with those who were useful to humanity, and get rid of any real threats. Because of what happened with Zim, I vowed to never judge a book by its paranormal cover, living or otherwise." Jazz had fallen silent.

"Oh, shut up." Dib suddenly muttered. "I had to tell someone, all right?"

"W-what?" Jazz asked, her voice shaky. Dib looked up.

"Oh, and this is another little perk-Zim's still in the Pak-it's how he could help me build the weapon, and I have to deal with his input on everything I do. And no, you can't!"

"…You're talking to him?"

"Yeah." Dib paused. "You want to?"

"Uh… okay…" Dib nodded.

"Just a second." He closed his eyes, his fingers twitching. His calm straight face suddenly shot down into a displeased scowl. When he spoke, his voice was completely different. It sounded smooth, but there was obvious anger with a hint of insanity in the tone.

"About time, earth monkey! You haven't let me have even partial control since the thing with the Dash-beast!" His eyes flew open, the irises now a dark maroon. He noticed Jazz staring with her mouth open.

"Stop staring, she-beast. The Dib worm prepared you sufficiently, no? Too much if you ask me…" He hopped off the chair, jumping up into the air. Something dark silver shot out of his back, and after a moment he was dangling from four separate metal legs. Danny's invisible mouth was at this point mirroring his sister's.

"So… you're…"

"What? Oh, fine. Dib says to tell you that it's 'probably the worst case of multiple personality disorder ever.'" He looked down at Jazz. "He thinks that's humor, it's really quite sad…"

"So… you two basically share a body?"

"Basically… I give him amazing advice, and take over when I deem my amazing guidance is needed, but unfortunately since it's his body the Dib mostly gets control." 'Zim' sounded bitter about that. Danny slowly backed out of the room, making sure not to bump into anything. When he'd floated back to his room, he dropped down onto his bed, changing back to Fenton from Phantom. He was breathing hard.

_What… what now?_


	4. Bitter Truths, Sweet Revenge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a flashback. This is also where the 'minor violence' comes into play, so this is your warning. I'm sorry, but it was necessary.

Dib sighed, balling up his fists.

_What are you doing?_

_Stop doubting everything I do!_ Dib snapped back.  _For the millionth time,_ _ **you**_ _did this and you're stuck with it!_  He sighed, sinking down unto his bed. It had been two weeks, and Zim still hadn't stopped bugging him about every tiny little thing. Today was the day they would be going back to hi skool-no one would know about Zim, obviously. 'Zim' had disappeared three weeks ago, and Dib had stopped coming to skool the day after. The Skool Bord had threatened expulsion to Dib if he didn't return by today, and he wasn't willing to give up his entire life for this… setback. Dib grabbed the backpack he'd cut a large hole in, slipping it over the Pak. He was already expecting questions, but the Pak would raise far too many more. No one knew that Zim was dead, or even that he'd even been exposed as an alien. The Swollen Eyeball was very secretive, even about this.

 _Not dead._ Dib reminded himself as he stood up _. Just… yeah, I've got no word for this._

 _I heard that!_  Zim snickered.

 _Shut up!_ Dib raked a hand through his hair, before standing up. Luckily, the Pak hadn't impaired anything in his body, except one thing that Zim wasn't telling him. He'd tried for days to wheedle it out of the alien, but he always hit a dead end. Zim could slip in and out of his thoughts and mind, even manipulating it to a degree, but when it came to looking back at the alien, Zim had a wall as high as the stars. He knew only what the alien gave him.  _Look, if you keep annoying me, I'll end up yelling at you. Then I'll get locked into the Krazy House, with you stuck too. Do you want that?_

 _No... Fine. But if-_  Zim sounded almost like he was whining.

 _No. Period. It's my body, I get control at Skool, got it? You can go back to your base and build or whatever later, but skool is MINE._ Zim mentally sighed loudly.

 _Fine, Dib-worm. You win... THIS time._ Dib didn't respond, instead gripping the to too-tight straps of his silver backpack and throwing open his bedroom door. He slid down the banister, before hopping off and heading towards the kitchen.

"Morning Gaz, morning dad." He said absently, before doing a double take. "Dad?" Indeed, the professor was in the kitchen, making-of course- some toast. Although he'd rarely been home outside of his basement lab in their childhood, by the time Gaz hit thirteen and Dib fourteen he was only home about twice a year.

"Good morning son!" He held out a piece of the toast, one that already had butter. "Toast?" Dib backed away a little as Zim mentally started chuckling.

_Do you really fear your parental unit?_

_No! He's just… never home._  Zim already knew this, of course-he'd long since looked through every memory of Dib's, causing a lot of embarrassing moments for the boy. "It-It's not Super Toast, right?" The man shook his head.

"No." Dib walked forward and grabbed the breakfast food.

"Well, okay…" He nibbled the golden brown edges-he had to give the man credit, he always could make perfect toast. "So, what brings you home?" Zim was still lightly taunting him the whole time, but he'd trained himself to ignore it.

"Well, I had something to tell you, son!" Dib took a larger bite.

"Somfin' to tell meh?" He said around a mouthful of crumbs.

"Yes and something to give you- come down to my lab." Dib nodded, following his father down as he wiped his mouth. They walked all the way across the lab, to the dusty corners Membrane had always warned him against playing in as a child.

"What are we doing here?" Dib asked after swallowing another bite. The older man started shuffling around papers, muttering sort of loudly to himself.

 _You must take after him…_  Zim said sarcastically.

 _Quiet! This could be important!_  Dib shushed him. Finally the man proclaimed 'eureka!' and pulled out a very dusty file.

"I meant to give you this when you turned fourteen, but…" He drifted off. Dib blinked, his eyes falling to a sarcastic half-mast. His birthday had been nearly four months ago.

"Um, it's the thought that counts, right?" Dib said, trying to sound upbeat. The professor grinned, or at least Dib thought he did in the low light.

"Well, son, here you go!" Dib grabbed the papers that had been forcibly thrust into his chest. He tried to smile back, but it quickly fell when he dusted off the cover. The file was quite thick, but from the rips and obvious mouse bites marks it hadn't been touched in years.

"Dad, if this is another one of your old experiments you want me to continue-"

"Just look at it." His father's voice had turned very serious. Confused, Dib brushed off more years of dust, until finally a name appeared. But… it was his?

"D-I-B…" He read. There was more lettering under the three letters, like an acronym. He blew it off, swatting at his face and coughing. He read it out loud before his mind had time to process what he was seeing. "Durable Intertransfer Biological Offprint Test Human Experiment Number 1." He looked up, not really understanding. "Uh, Dad… what the heck is this?" He started flipping through the pages, until he came upon one with the title E-L-F. Ironic, considering his father always hated Santa… the acronym under the letters was what really had him floored though.

"E-Experimental life form?" He said slowly, his voice catching in his throat. Zim was silent, but Dib had the feeling it was from shock. The alien had understood as soon as Dib had read the letters under his name- his full name, that is. "Dad, please tell me this is some sort of weird joke… it's not funny…" The man responded by sighing.

"I should have told you earlier, I knew it…" He sucked in a breath. "You were cloned from me. The earliest successful subject, no less. You never had a mother, we simply altered my DNA a bit so you wouldn't be an exact replica. People might've gotten suspicious." Dib's hazel eyes were frozen wide. "You seemed to hold so much promise… you always liked playing with the test tubes, and could even solve extremely basic formulas-simple, like one plus three, but far beyond any other toddler. Then, one day you disappeared. We looked everywhere for you, but no one could find you until the next day, when you were playing quietly in the backyard. You'd made a picture in the grass using your finger, creating something with long, straight bug-like antennae and wide eyes… you were never the same, and so we tried again. Gazlene was attempt two, and she looked about as well-off as you, but with more strength. A tad less brains, perhaps, but still quite promising. Until we took her into town and she saw an arcade…" Dib could figure out the rest.

"Why… why didn't you ever tell me?" He sputtered out.

"We wanted you to live as normal a life as possible, to see if you interacted normally with other children. You acted older than your age, and Gazlene never was very good at being with other people…" Dib bit his lip.

"I… I…" Suddenly, he felt a wave of confusion, but also an odd sort of comfort. His consciousness was shoved back as Zim took control by force.

"I require more learning, Di-father. It's time for hi skool." With that, Dib's body turned heel and walked up the stairs, before passing in front of Gaz (still eating her toast) and out the door. It was only when they were in a nearby alley that Zim receded.

 _Dib?_  It was the first time he'd used the human's name in its own in a while-since they'd become attached, in fact.

 _Just… just let me think…_  The boy thought quietly, his body sinking down onto the filthy ground. His thoughts were chasing each other around like bees. One in particular stuck out.

 _Why should you care?_  It sounded more like something Zim would say, but it brought up a good point.  _You've always been smarter than them, and it really doesn't make any difference. It's not like they'll ever find out… and besides, he's a brilliant and admired scientist. Who cares? If anything, it's just cool!_  Dib thought about that for a moment.

"Heck, that's right... I don't need to worry about this!" He said, his voice slowly rising in volume.

 _But doesn't it mean that you're not really human?_  Zim asked, sounding oddly resentful. That valid point sent Dib crashing right back down.

 _I… I guess…_ Suddenly a feeling of something Dib could only describe as a cross between sorrow and glee flooded his head. _What the… ZIM!?_

 _I just had a great idea!_  The alien said.  _Just hold on!_  He stood up, taking control again. Dib started struggling, but his confusion and uncertainty left him weak and unable to regain control.

_What the hell do you think you're doing? We're heading for the skool!_

_Exactly…_  Zim cackled mentally.  _Here's the idea._   _You were pushed around like a sack of wheat by the other pig-smellies, no?_

_Well, um, yeah…_

_Now that you don't have to protect them anymore-and you don't have the excuse 'they're humans too' we can finally have fun with them! What were the names again?_ Dib mentally gasped as Zim clumsily sifted through his mind.  _Ah, yes… Torque, Zita, and Chunk._

_Zim, you can't just-_

_Why not?_

_Because they don't know any better!_

_You always seemed to._

_That's different!_

_How?_ Zim challenged. Dib thought for a moment, but came up with nothing.

… _I was smarter_. He protested weakly, but he already knew he was giving in to the idea. Revenge did sound sweet after all these years… Zim sensed it too, and pounced.

 _I'll help you, but you can even do it yourself!_  He yanked himself back, sending Dib careening back into control as his body stumbled, nearly hitting the pavement.

_Yah! Don't do that!_

_Do what?_ Zim questioned innocently.

 _Ooh, never mind…_ Dib huffed.  _What time is it?_

 _Seven forty one._  Zim answered instantly-his Pak had a clock that was accurate to the nanosecond, one plus of the thing.

 _We'd have time… fine. We'll take them as they come into skool. But if they're not there, I'm not going looking, deal?_ He could practically see Zim smirking.

_Deal._

* * *

Five minutes later, Dib was hiding up in a tree. Kids were just starting to mill around the front grounds, but most of them were from later grades. No one other then Gretchen (Who'd gotten her braces off during the summer and now was actually quite pretty) and Lizard Boy (Dib had never bothered to learn his real name, as he rarely talked anyway) were there that were their age. Well Dib's age anyway-last count, Zim was around a hundred sixty. Suddenly, a cluster of five kids appeared, consisting of Zita, Jessica, Letty, Torque, and Chunk. Letty and Jessica, although they were typical whiny popular girls, had never really done anything to him, so he decided to try roping in just the others. He dropped out of the tree, shimmying across the brick building. Zita suddenly turned her head.

"Did you guys hear something?" The rest of the group looked at her, confused. She squinted into the dark side of the building. "There! Something just moved again!" She walked up to the building. In eighth grade she'd sacrificed her old dress for a tight lavender top and matching skirt with a dark purple belt. Torque still wore his jersey, just in a bigger size, and Chunk had merely swapped his precious sweatshirt for an even darker red one.

Dib was trying not to breathe, and not think about what he was about to do.

_So, how are you going to 'help' me?_

_I have hundreds of years of training, no? I tell you how to move, and you move. Even you should be able to grasp so simple a-_

"I  _get_  it!" Dib hadn't realized he'd spoken aloud until someone called back.

"Who's there?" It was Zita. He decided to just go with it.

"Me." She took another step, looking cautiously around.

"Who?"

"Me. " He repeated, not even bothering disguising his voice.

"What the-Dib? Is that you?" She sounded a cross between annoyed, curious, and bored now.

"Yeah, it's me. Can I show you something? I promise it'll be quick." She rolled her eyes.

"Look, I really don't-"

"I promise it'll be worth your time, okay?" He swallowed. "I know what happened to Zim and I… I just have to tell someone." She placed a slender hand on her hip, but her eyes showed she was interested. Dib remembered how she'd given Zim a steak during Valentine's last year, and how she'd dressed in a uniform similar to his for Halloween a few years back. Sure enough, she took the bait.

"Fine, but I'm bringing a few kids with me. Torque, Chunk, get over here!" Dib grinned despite himself. Like a worm to a bird. He sank further back into the shadows.

_How do I use the spider legs again?_

_They're like an extension of your body. Imagine they're just extra arms_. Zim advised, a gleeful attitude painted through his tone. Dib lightly bit his lip, concentrating as suddenly he was shot up. He let himself drop again.

_Actually, do you think you can speak with your voice, to freak them out? When I say._

_Excellent…_  Zim just said, before pulling back slightly as Zita started looking around.

"Hey? Geek-boy?" Suddenly came Chunk's voice. He and Torque practically barreled past Zita, and Dib shivered. Chunk had always been bad, but after Torque started blaming Dib for losing a lung, the two of them together were awful. He was suddenly washed with hundreds of memories of them hurting him in one way or another.

_What the heck Zim?_

_I just thought you might want some motivation…_  True to Zim's word, when looking over a few of them, Dib clenched his fists tightly.  _That's it. Rage is the best emotion-it can tear down mountains. Now just go up to them, earth stink. You'll know what to do._  Zim sounded like a tutor, but how he knew exactly what to say Dib didn't care. He stepped half into the light. His trench coat flapped and whirled around his tight black pants and boots like a cape.

"Hello, boys. Zita. Mind taking another few steps forward so we can all see each other better?" The boys hadn't gotten much smarter, as evidenced by their cocky grins and quick reactions to step forward. Zita, however, was far more cautious.

"Dib, this isn't funny. It was bad enough in elementary skool, but now it's just-"

"Creepy?" The boy finished. "I suppose. But c'mon. I'll just be a moment. For Zim?" She hesitated for a moment longer, before following the boys.

"Okay, but I swear Dib Membrane, if this is some trick-" Suddenly, he grabbed her.

"This is no trick. This is payback." He breathed into her face. Her bangs were brushed lightly back by the air, and Chunk and Torque only took a few seconds (quite fast, for them) to try to grab Dib. Zita looked terrified.

"What the hell is wrong with you? You're  _crazy_!" At that, his previously calm face twisted.

"Crazy? CRAZY? You've always called me crazy! All this time, no one believed me, with you leading them! Do you have any IDEA-"

"Gotchya!" Chunk yelled triumphantly, one thick hand gripping each of Dib's skinny arms. Dib bit his lip, his eyes narrowed dangerously low.

"Guess again." He swung his arms up, breaking Chunk's grip. He jumped into the air, activating the metal legs before he started falling. Chunk and Torque stared up, their mouths in identical agape expressions. Dib would've laughed any other time. "Zita?" He said, addressing the girl who's finally gotten up. Her eyes were impossibly wide. "You wanted to see what happened to Zim?" He closed his eyes for a split second.

 _Go to it, Space Boy. Do your thing._  In his mind, a projection of Zim the alien himself had created smacked his fist into his other glove.

 _With pleasure_. Dib felt himself shift back, but he didn't care. He could still see through his eyes and hear through his ears, so that didn't matter.

"Hello, dirt children. Miss me?" Hearing Zim's voice coming from his throat was eerie, but it was well worth it to see three identical stunned expressions.

" _Zim_?" Zita practically breathed. Zim examined 'his' fingers.

"Yes, it is I, the amazing Zim. The Dib and I have an unfortunate…  _situation_  at the moment. After I got caught, I wasn't ready to leave this filthy planet just yet." All of them looked more confused than when they'd had a sub in the sixth grade that had actually treated them like human beings.

"Wh-what?" Zita stuttered. "But-"

"The Dib was right all this time. So many times I thought he'd gotten me… but it was nothing but a slip up that finally caught me, and my brilliant disguise." He shrugged. He bit his tongue for a moment before projecting an image of himself out of disguise up above the top of the Pak. "It was always amazing, yes, but only the Dib saw through it... I always wondered why." He looked down at Zita, who by now had zero color left on her face. The jock boys still looked confused, but realization was slowly starting to dawn. "Looking through his head, it amazes me-how far you humans would go, to avoid the truth. I crafted brilliant lies, yes, but after all this time none of you bothered to take a second look at the Dib's accusations… even the Gasquekasplorch of the furthest Swetnel system weren't quite so ignorant…" Zim grinned that grin that only he could, with Dib's face no less. "Surprised?"

"B-but he's crazy!" Zita tried to weakly protest. "Th-there's no such things as aliens!" In his own mind, where he'd been calmly sitting, watching, and listening, Dib stood up. He pushed past Zim, reclaiming his body as his own.

"See what I mean?" Dib said, almost to himself. "Right in front of your faces. Shall I prove it to you?" He lowered himself slowly, a half-insane smirk gracing his face, twisting up maniacally. By the time the spider legs retracted, the normally awkward and bumbling for attention boy in front of them was practically gone-instead; there was a very angry victim who was ready to exact years of revenge in one painful blow. "Let's play, Zita." He didn't know why he zoned in on her first-maybe it was because she was smart, because she  _did_  know better. The other two were almost mindless muscle machines. He grabbed the girl. Her shirt was quite sweaty-she was obviously nervous.

"Wh-why? Wh-what happened?" She stuttered. "F-for y-years…" Her sentence was left unfinished, but it was quite clear what she meant. Dib barely hesitated.

"Because… because Zim was right." He gripped her shirt tightly, twisting the thin, practically see through fabric with an iron grip. "Humans are scum. I just never realized that until now." He raised a fist, and pounded it into her mouth as hard as he could. His knuckles came away with tiny drops of blood, although besides a bruise his hand was unharmed.

"Dude… you just hit a girl!" It was Torque, and Dib dropped Zita, kicking her out of the way.

"I just hit, yes… but that wasn't a decent girl." He darted forward, grabbing the boy by his blue jersey. He'd hit Zita in the mouth for all of those times she'd called him crazy, and she'd already gotten a fair punishment. The two boys, however, had hit and hurt him all over…

* * *

Twenty minutes later, Torque and Chunk were on the blood-soaked ground. They'd stopped twitching-Dib wasn't sure if they were even alive anymore, and he couldn't care less. His hands were soaked in the red liquid, and his glasses had gotten cracked somewhere along the line. Zim had occasionally egged him on, and given him little tips for hitting just right from his years of invader training. Torque had managed to tear up the middle of his trench coat from the bottom, leaving a long rip up the center reaching nearly to Dib's waist. Dib's hair was a mess, falling into a nearly normal style, the scythe practically flat. The jocks were undoubtedly coated in bruises hidden underneath their neatly sliced shirts and pants, (courtesy of the Pak's incredibly sharp spider legs,) and blood was leaking from their clothes. Zita hadn't been touched after the initial punch, but her horrified face showed that she'd carry the sight in front of her forever. Dib smacked his hands together, up and down, his task complete. The bell had rung about five minutes ago, but no one had noticed them yet, and Dib doubted they would.

"D-Dib…" Zita said slowly, her face filled with horror. She would have escaped, but something kept her rooted in place-maybe it was fear Dib would come after her again, or maybe it was thinking that someone needed to see this, to confirm it was really happening. He turned to her, rotating slowly on his wet and red-streaked boots.

"Yes." It was a statement, not a question, but she took whatever he was giving her. His tone was… almost light. Like nothing had just happened, like she'd asked him a question in science class, nothing more.

"W-what are you going to do with us? All of us?" She weakly waved a hand at herself, then at the jocks, then at the skool building. Dib looked up, a ray of sunlight piercing through the thick wall of trees and glinting off of his cracked glasses. He took a moment to answer, not pulling his gaze from the single light beam.

"Nothing. My work here is done." He swallowed. "I'm finished… and it's time to move on." He looked back down to Zita, his eyes now brimming with tears. When he spoke again, it was removed, almost like he was dead and his words were merely echoing from beyond the grave. "There's nothing left for me here." The teen looked up again, before gently clenching his fists, then sucking in a deep breath. "It doesn't matter anymore… none of it does." His eyes once again returned to Zita. "It doesn't matter if you tell anyone... or if they believe you. You won't… have to worry about me anymore. I'm going to find somewhere… somewhere better. Somewhere where I won't be called crazy, and somewhere it doesn't matter what your past is. A place of second chances." He blinked slowly, his eyes still wet. Deep down, she almost felt sorry for him, but another glance at the still forms of her 'friends' stilled  _that_  thought.

"So…. You're leaving?" She managed to say.

"I suppose." Dib stated slowly. "Hopefully we'll never see each other again. Goodbye, Zita." He looked to the hi skool building, specifically at a few vines of moss growing up the side of the wall. "Goodbye…" With that final word, he started running. Out past the skool, until he was a rapidly disappearing dot in the cityscape. Zita's eyes followed him until Dib Membrane turned a corner and was gone.


	5. Normal is Relative

Danny groaned, rolling over and burying his face in his soft pillow, sinking in. His gaze fell to the clock, but only six minutes had passed since Dib's confession in his sister's room. It seemed like an eternity, with all of his thought running around at a million miles an hour.

_What do I say to him now?_

_Do I tell anyone? No, I can't…._

_Why not?_

_He's right, it doesn't hurt anyone…_

_But it's… it's not right!_

_I wonder if this was how Jazz felt when she found out?_ At that thought, Danny pushed himself up.

_Finding out her brother was a ghost… something she didn't even believe in, but having to hide it from everyone, including him, what she knew…_ He sighed, sinking back down into his sheets.  _Yeah, this is probably how Jazz felt…_  He grabbed his pillow and hugged it to his chest. Suddenly, he heard a knock on the door.

"Danny?" It was his sister. "Dib wanted to see the lab, and he wanted you to come as an excuse, in case we need to cut dad off." Danny gripped the pillow.

_Deep breaths… act natural._  He slid off his bed, opening the door. Jazz looked a bit shaken, but she was covering it well. Dib was smiling warmly, and his eyes were once again chocolate. They looked lighter, like he'd gotten a huge weight off his shoulders.

"Thanks for letting me borrow your sister. We had a good talk." Jazz just nodded, blinking. "So, I'm still interested to see some of those ghost devices. Who knows, I might even get one or two." He laughed. Danny wondered why Jazz was letting him near the lab, but they'd probably discussed something after he'd left…

"Okay. I'm warning you, though, once you get dad going…" He waved his hand in a loose circle under his mouth, indicating talking. Dib chuckled again.

"Oh, I don't mind. The more information you know, the better, I always say." He started heading downstairs, with Jazz and Danny right on his heels. Danny had forced a smile onto his face.

"So, you said you've met ghosts before?" The boy mentioned casually to the one in front of him. Dib nodded. "What were they like?" Dib paused for a moment, causing Jazz to almost bump into him.

"Well, they were all blue, and they were pretty old- one was dressed in stuff from the Rebellion war."

"Rebellion war?" Dib turned to look back at him.

"You know, when the US fought for freedom from England?"

"Oh, you mean the Revolutionary war?" Dib waved his hand.

"Yeah, whatever you guys call it. Anyway, there was one like that with a bullet in his shoulder, one with a top hat that looked kind of like Lincoln, and one that kept flying around on a broom. I talked to them every once in a while-they were decently nice, when I could even get them to talk." He started down the stairs again. "But the ghosts here in Amity seem to be a lot more hostile…"

"Got that right…" Danny muttered. This time, Dib didn't seem to have noticed.

"Mr. Fenton! Mrs. Fenton!" Dib said happily. He held out a hand to Jack. "We weren't formally introduced." Jack had a huge smile as he took Dib's hand and shook it vigorously. Dib's tiny hand totally disappeared inside Jack's, but neither male seemed to mind, although it made Danny chuckle quietly.

"Hey there! What was your name again?"

"Dib." The boy pulled his hand out. "Danny mentioned that you two were ghost hunters…?"

"Of course we are!" Jack boomed. "We can't let our town get overrun by those pests, can we?" Dib shrugged.

"Depends on who they are… the troublemakers, I agree a hundred percent. Do you think I could see your lab?"

"Of course!" The man grinned, grabbing Dib's arm and dragging him down the stairs. Danny shook his head, laughing.

"Dad really needs to find some other people that are interested…" He followed the two down into the basement, where Jack was showing Dib one of the Fenton ecto-guns. Dib _looked_  interested, but from the way he kept absently rubbing his backpack he wanted to know about the other weapons.

"And this function is-"

"What's this one?" Dib interrupted, pointing to something else. Jack's eyes glimmered.

"That one's the Fenton boooo-merang! It hones in a ghost's ecto signature and tracks it, no matter how far away it is." Dib fiddled with the button for a minute before holding it up.

"So is it-" He tossed the device up into the air, which of course headed straight for Danny, hitting his head.

"Ow!" Danny, not thinking, chucked it back at Dib. It just looped around and hit him again. "Ow!" He grabbed it before it fell. "Stupid…" He looked up to Dib, feeling his heart skip a beat when the boy's hazel eyes were wide, but calculating. He practically fainted in relief when the boy just walked over and grabbed the tracking device.

"Looks like there's still some bugs in it…" Jack took it from Dib, scratching his head.

"It always locks into Danny for some reason…" He shrugged, before putting it down. "Now, this one is the Fenton Thermos…"

The next twenty minutes consisted largely of Jack (and Maddie, when she came down a few minutes later with a plate of cookies) showing Dib the assortment of weapons. Dib seemed the most interested in the thermos, the ghost shields, and the peeler.

"You guys said you sell this stuff sometimes, right?"

"Right!" Jack replied, but Maddie looked more wary.

"Yes, but why are you interested?" Dib started rummaging around in his coat.

"Because I want to see if I can buy one of the thermoses." Maddie's eyes widened.

"Buy one of them? But what would you-"

"Capturing ghosts, duh…" The boy seemed to be resisting the urge to roll his eyes.

"Dib, you have to understand, ghost fighting is not-"

"I'm not going to be ghost fighting. I want one as assurance that in case I do run into trouble, I'll be prepared. I've got plenty of money, that's not a problem." The lie slipped easily off Dib's tongue, and Jack seemed to buy it, along with Maddie, although from the 'worried parent' look on her face she wasn't totally sold on the idea. Danny decided it was time for him to go upstairs, and he headed for the stairway. When he made it up and sat on a chair to wait, he saw Jazz come after him.

"So, how did it go?" He asked, wanting to sound as normal as possible. She didn't miss a beat.

"It was interesting. He's a… pretty cool kid." She replied, edging around the issue like a pro. Danny didn't want to push it.

"In your opinion, would he be a 'good friend'?" He made finger quotes, asking sarcastically.

"Well, I think you really should give him a chance, Danny. He's new, and needs to adjust. Once he does, I'm sure he'll be fine." She was smiling now. Danny wondered what had happened after he'd left, what Dib had said to get Jazz to trust her little brother with him.

"Yeah, he is pretty cool." Danny admitted, before Dib himself came up the stairs behind Jazz.

"Thanks!" He called down. Danny stood up.

"Want me to walk you home?" Dib shook his head.

"Nah, I think I've wandered around enough to get back to my apartment. Thanks for the offer though." He smiled at Dib. "It really is a nice change of pace to see someone friendly." He grabbed one of his backpack straps, shifting the pack that hid the Pak. "See you in skool tomorrow?"

"Yeah. We can meet by your locker-I'll introduce you to Sam and Tucker."

"Great, I'm excited to meet them!" He waved, walking towards the door. "See you later!" Danny waved too.

"See you!" When the door closed, Dib considered leaving to follow him, but Jazz would just annoy him about it.  _Later_ , he decided.

* * *

The next morning, Danny shut his locker, rubbing his eyes. He hadn't gotten much sleep last night, but he was hiding it pretty well. Technus had annoyed him nearly all night, and he'd only managed to catch him at three that morning, leaving him three hours of sleep. He concealed a yawn as Sam walked up, with Tucker right behind her as always.

"Morning, Danny." She said, shifting her black spider backpack. He waved.

"Sam, Tucker, you remember the new kid from yesterday?"

"Yeah, the one in the dodgeball game?" Sam said at the same time Tucker asked "The kid from Lancer's class?"

"Yeah." He leaned in closer. "The one with ghost hunting equipment, Dib." He straightened up. "He came to my house last night, and I told him I'd introduce both of you to him."

"What?" Sam exclaimed. Danny sighed. He'd decided not to tell Sam and Tucker about Dib's secret-not only because it meant that it would be easier to keep, but also because if he wanted to actually be nice to the kid then Sam and Tucker needed to be able to see him as just another teen-one with ghost hunting weapons, but also (seemingly) a conscience. Then, when he got close enough, he might be able to find out more.

"Look, he's actually a pretty nice kid. And he's got some pretty cool tech, from what he-" Tucker grabbed Danny's hand.

"Then what are we waiting for?" Danny smirked.

"Nothing, Tuck. He's locker seven twenty two." Sam was back to looking bemused.

"Well, if you trust him…" She glanced down the hall, and Danny heard her mutter something about Valerie, but she followed the two boys anyway.

When they got there, Dib was putting his books in his locker.

"Hey, Danny." He said without turning his head.

"how did you see me?" Dib looked at him, before pointing to his glasses.

"Peripheral vision…" He grinned, before holding out a hand to Sam. "You're the girl who won the dodgeball game, right? Sam?" She nodded, taking his hand and shaking it.

"Sam Manson." Dib nodded at her, before turning to Tucker as he let go.

"Then you must be Tucker…"

"Yeah, that's me." He grabbed Dib's hand and shook it vigorously. "Danny mentioned you worked with technology, and before you said you liked inventing, right?" Dib nodded.

"I love that sort of stuff-my old town practically lived off of technology." He explained, pulling his hand away to gesture. "I mean, even the library used retinal scanners."

"Awesome!" Tucker pulled out his PDA, looking for something cool to show Dib. Dib looked at it, before pulling something out of his own pocket. It looked sort of like Tucker's, but instead of blue it was lavender, and it was thinner with a bigger screen.

"Here's mine, but I don't use it very often." He handed it to the other boy, who eagerly grabbed the machinery.

"Dude, this is, like, a year ahead of us!" He flicked it on, playing with the system. Dib grinned.

"Give it back for a second-I need to delete something. Then you can mess with it all you want, I just want it back at the end of the day."

"Really?" The african-american teen had a look like a kid in a candy store. "Sweet!" Dib grabbed the handheld back and fiddled with it for a minute. Danny swore he saw a hologram project for a second, but it was only a moment, before Dib handed it back.

"There you go-" The bell rang suddenly, and Dib held the one book still in his hands. "Oops, gotta go… maybe I'll see you guys at lunch?" Tucker nodded enthusiastically, and Danny grinned. Sam nodded too-she seemed to be starting to get used to him. Danny and Tucker headed for Lancer's room, Tucker messing with the PDA the whole time and muttering to himself.

* * *

By the time lunch rolled around, Danny heard enough about the small PDA that hadn't left Tucker's hands since before first period to write a report on it. He sighed, enduring until he could talk with Sam and hopefully get some peace. He slid his tray through the line, grabbing a bologna sandwich from the options and plunking it on his plate. He snagged a milk before sitting down. Sam was already there, and she was eating what looked like a lettuce sandwich. Danny mentally gagged, before taking a bite of his own sandwich. The bologna tasted kinda funny, but no different from what the school usually served, so he swallowed and took another bite. When Tucker sat down next to Sam, a shadow appeared over Danny, making the teen-and his lunch-fall into shade.

"You can sit down…" The hair in the shadow was unmistakably Dib's, and the boy took a seat next to Danny, across from Tucker.

"What's that?" He pointed to Danny's sandwich, before his nose twitched and one eye wrinkled up. "Eugh, bologna…" He pulled out his own bag lunch and reached in, pulling out a bag of chips. They had yet another copy of the odd symbol on Dib's hidden necklace printed on the front, and Danny figured that it meant something important. Danny took another bite.

"What's wrong with bologna?" Dib just stuck his tongue out slightly, shaking his head.

"Long, unbelievable story."

The next seven minutes consisted of Danny and Tucker pestering Dib for the story, who just grinned that crooked grin of his and consistently shaking his head, obviously enjoying dangling it over their heads. Danny faintly recalled a comment Dib had made in science, something that could have mentioned bologna, but it slipped his mind what. Finally, Dib reached into his bag and pulled out a chip. He held it out to Danny.

"Want one?" The boy nodded, grabbing it. He stuffed the chip in his mouth, chewing slowly.

"Hyy, did's swtt!" He exclaimed. Dib laughed as Danny swallowed. "Hey, it's sweet!" He repeated. Tucker grinned.

"Hey, pass me one!" Dib handed the other teen a chip, who immediately grabbed it. Danny licked his finger.

"Where'd you get those? It's like they're covered in sugar instead of salt!" Dib shrugged.

"I think they were an export or something-and they are sprinkled in sugar. It's pretty easy to make them, actually, but there's one ingredient I don't remember that makes the taste really good." He shifted his eyes up a little too fast for Danny's taste, indicating that he was lying. Danny didn't want to push it though-it would make Dib suspicious, and unless he'd poisoned them it really didn't matter.

The rest of lunch was just playful banter, and both Tucker and Sam seemed to be getting used to the boy. Danny was quieter than usual, causing Sam to give him a few worried glances, but he waved it off. As they all stood up for getting rid of their garbage, Danny stood up last, taking a half-second too long once-over of the skinny teen. His hair was still in that impossible style, and his trench coat looked almost like a cape, like he'd noticed before. He seemed almost bony, and his head seemed just a bit too big for his body. His tall boots reached nearly up to his knees, and they looked faintly like combat boots. His face was thin, which figured. His silver backpack still cut into his coat, hiding the machinery.

He glanced around the cafeteria- the popular table, the nerd table, the band geeks table. Didn't they all have something that no one knew? Didn't everyone have secrets? Yeah, they might not have been as major as his, but they were still secrets nonetheless. No one knew everything about another person, no matter how close they were. Danny glanced down at himself-the teen saw his usual white shirt, red sneakers, and semi-loose jeans. He looked normal… but wasn't. Wasn't it the same for Dib? As he walked forward to dump his tray, that last idea echoed in his head.

_What_ _**is** _ _normal?_


	6. Spy in the Sanctum

A day passed-it was Wednesday night, and Danny was just getting settled into bed. He'd just had to fight off Skulker for the second time that week, and he was exhausted. He pulled on his blue pajamas and almost fell on top of his mattress, flicking off the light with his finger. He wiped his forehead, brushing away a stray lock of hair, before curling his legs up a tad. There were a few things on his mind, but one was the most prominent-Dib. The boy had slowly been gaining his wish-he pretended the incident with Dash had never happened, and it was starting to fade. He'd been mostly hanging out with Danny, Sam, and Tucker- he was all right, and Sam and Tucker both seemed to like him just fine. He was obviously a bit of a nerd-he raised his hand for EVERYTHING in class-but otherwise he acted mostly like a normal kid. Only Danny seemed to notice the way he often muttered to himself between classes… but maybe that was because he was keeping such a close eye on the boy.

Danny sighed, rolling over. He grabbed his covers, pulling them up to his head.  _Face it, no one's ever going to figure out he's anything but another kid… one that tends to talk a lot, sure, but even the way he's almost obsessed with the paranormal is nearly normal here…_ Danny was jolted out of his thoughts by a thud downstairs. He groaned, but rubbed his eyes and checked the clock. The neon numbers pulsed softly in the darkness, informing the halfa that it was about two minutes past midnight.

_Geez, I must've been fighting Skulker longer then I thought…_ Danny rolled out of bed.  _It's probably just dad getting a midnight snack, but better safe than sorry…_ He stumbled down the stairs, yawning. Not wanting to turn on the light, considering it might wake up his parents or Jazz, he instead made his eyes glow. His ghostly vision made the dark easy to see through, but there was nothing unusual there. About to go back to bed, suddenly the boy heard another noise, softer this time, but coming from the lab.

"Who could that be? My ghost sense would have gone off if it was another ghost…" He tiptoed down the stairs, leaving the kitchen light off. There was a sort of quiet rustling coming from the opposite end of the lab, by the portal.  _That can't be good…_  "Show yourself!" He knew what was on most of the tables and grabbed something. After feeling it up and down for a moment, it was revealed as probably one of their least technological weapons-the Fenton Anti-Creep Stick. Ah well, it'd work if it was a human… funny, the security had always put off any burglar before-they must have been after the technology in the lab. "I've got a weapon and I'm not afraid to use it!"

"You wouldn't-you couldn't." A slick voice hissed from the darkness, and it was a voice Danny had heard but once. Zim. Danny gripped the bat tighter.

"Yes, I could. Don't tempt me." He was trying not to start hyperventilating, an image of the flash of metal of those incredibly sharp looking appendages from the Pak running through his mind over and over. He'd subconsciously gotten used to Dib, and had been hoping that he could just try to eventually forget about Zim, but it seemed that there was no such break… just his luck.

"I really doubt that. You couldn't…  _keep up_." The last two words were hissed, and Danny whirled around. They'd come from just to the right of him!

"How did you-"

"I can do a lot of things. Just go back upstairs and I won't have to bother you." Danny forced out a rough laugh.

"You…. You can't scare me. I've seen things that could turn you white." There was a quiet chuckle, from across the room again, a mocking echo of him.

"So have I…" Danny decided the easiest way to figure out what he wanted to was to shed some light on the other one-literally. He leaned back and flipped the switch with his elbow. Zim/Dib hissed loudly, before a loud crashing noise echoed through the lab as one of the table's legs cracked. When Danny squinted, there was a hint of a ripple in front of the leg, like a reflection in water.  _Whoa._

"Who's there?" He decided to play dumb, to see if he could find out more.

"Oh man… what happened?" Danny let out a loud breath in relief-the voice was undoubtedly Dib's. "Where am… what the…?" The ripple moved, and Danny suddenly saw how humanoid it looked. "Danny's parent's lab?" It was obvious he hadn't noticed the boy, and Danny quickly went invisible-maybe Dib's tendency to talk to himself could work to his advantage. "How did I get here?" Dib moved slightly, before suddenly his head, clad with darkly tinted goggles, appeared. "…And how did I get into my stealth suit…?" He started peeling it off, piece by piece. The pants, the shirt, then the gloves. Luckily, he was still in his school clothes, including his backpack. Minus his trench coat of course, it wouldn't fit. Danny again noticed the oddly-uniform like structure of the sleeves, but now it looked familiar… he almost snapped his fingers at the realization. Zim's uniform! It looked sort of like a darker, blue version of it! Dib was looking around, confused, before slowly closing his eyes.

"Zim? What happened?" He was silent for a moment, before opening them again. " _What_?" He sighed heavily. "I don't care what you want. We agreed you'd stop doing this, remember? You remember what happened last time!" He balled up the stealth suit and shoved it in his backpack, before quickly heading for the stairs. "Yes, it's a good idea, but you're never doing that again or I swear I'll plug you into the unmonitored internet for three hours again!" Danny darted out of the way as Dib walked past him, the boy rubbing his eyes. "I don't care if you need no sleep, I do sometimes. That doesn't give you free reign to-NO!" He disappeared up the stair. Danny was breathing hard.

_What was THAT?_   It was a good twenty minutes before he went back upstairs, and he had to spend another good hour mulling over what he'd seen and heard before drifting off to a fitful sleep.

* * *

Another two days passed. Dib had seemed sleepy in class on Thursday, his head bobbing up and down every so often, but it wasn't anything the other kids didn't do themselves. It had taken a lot of effort to just keep treating Dib like normal, but Danny had somehow managed it. He had the feeling Dib was starting to suspect something was up though… It was now Friday night, and Danny was looking forward to some alone time. His parents were away for an inventor's convention-they'd left yesterday afternoon, and were supposed to be back around eight in the morning on Sunday. Jazz was studying with a friend of hers, and Danny had the house to himself, a luxury he planned to use fully. It was now almost ten fifteen, and Danny had been playing video games in his room by himself for the past few hours, headphones out of the speakers and Dumpty Humpty blasting full volume. He was singing along-not very WELL, but still.

" _Turn your old tired excuses and lies around, break out of this desperate road, it's a way that's we're all secretly bound, all you have to do is crack the code…"_  Danny sang, tapping his fingers against the controller. The screen flashed 'game over' for the twelfth time, and Danny got up, stretching. "A snack sounds nice right about now…" He hit the remote for his stereo, turning off the CD. He chuckled, wondering if the neighbors would complain about the noise. He doubted it-some of his parent's inventions had gotten quite loud as well, a loud stereo would be the least of their worries. He smacked his lips, opening his door and walking down the steps. There were no lights on-which was odd, he would've thought that Jazz would've left a few on considering she was coming back later-but thought nothing of it, flicking the switch up. He grabbed a bag of chips, but froze when he heard a noise. Setting the snack down, he closed his eyes, trying to pinpoint it. He sighed when his efforts discovered that it was coming from the lab. "Maybe Jazz got back early?" He shrugged, picking up the chips again and walking down the steps.

"The music stopped a minute ago-oh crap, are those footsteps?" Danny stopped, one foot suspended in midair above a stair. He knew that voice-Dib? Why was he here? He'd been thinking hard, and had decided that Zim had taken total control of Dib that night, but if it was Dib's voice… Danny poked his head down. Dib, wearing the stealth suit from before but without a headpiece this time, was staring at the stairs in shock. When he saw Danny, he grinned widely-a big 'hand in the cookie jar' smile. "Hi?" Danny walked down the rest of the stairs.

"Okay, what the heck are you doing here?"

"Uh, I wanted to look at the equipment?" Danny raised an eye and gestured to Dib's body. The other teen looked down, before laughing nervously. "Um, I didn't want you knowing?" Danny reached over, grabbing the anti-creep stick again. He held it up.

"Start talking. It's ten fifteen at night, and you're dressed up like some sort of freaky ninja in my basement." Dib sighed, his entire posture drooping.

"…I wanted to get into the ghost zone." Danny let the bat droop.

"What? Why would you-"

"I like studying ghosts, okay?" Dib suddenly burst, as if Danny had asked him a hundred questions instead of just a few. "I wanted to find out more, and since I can't get to the one near the mayor-"

"How do you know about Vl-Mayor Master's portal?" Now it was Dib's turn to raise an eye.

"Ectoplasmic energy detector. There's way too much activity for it to be a coincidence. Besides, the guys in white's files-"

"You hacked the guys in white?" Dib just nodded.

"I've gotten through worse. Anyway, it confirmed that there were two portals here in Amity-this one, and the one the mayor has in order to monitor ghosts. Their files say it's not used but I know otherwise. I'm trying to figure out why he'd need that though…" Danny was honestly floored- Dib was good, and a lot smarter then he gave him credit for. In less than a week, he'd done what the government couldn't do in almost six months.

"Seriously, though, why would you want to get into the ghost zone? Even my parents haven't-"

"Wait… wait. They've had this for how long, and they've never used it?" He grinned again. "That's stupi-wait. You said your parents haven't. Have you?" Danny had two choices-either lie and wait until Dib broke in again, considering he seemed to be determined. Or, he could tell the truth and get it over with now… He sighed.

"Yes, I've been in the ghost zone before." Danny's eyes widened, and he grinned.

"Can you pleeeeease take me?"

"…Dude, you just broke into my house. I don't really owe you any favors." Danny pointed out, back to the stairs. Dib walked forward, his body still nothing but a blur on the wall behind him. It really was pretty impressive technology.

"You know I'm just going to bug you about it until you let me. And besides, you're still fine right?" Danny pondered on that. It would be easier to just take him now, and get back before his parents got home. Dib would at least partially leave him alone about this, his parents wouldn't know, and Jazz would just assume he'd gone ghost fighting if she noticed him missing.

"…Fine. But just this once, okay? And on three conditions." Dib nodded eagerly.

"What?" Danny pointed at Dib's torso.

"One, take that thing off." Dib looked down at himself and nodded sheepishly.

"Yeah, okay... and?" Danny held up three fingers and ticked one down.

"And you have to do everything I say, got it? The ghost zone is very dangerous, especially to humans." Dib nodded again.

"Fair enough." Danny ticked down his second finger.

"Third, I don't want to leave all day tommorow, as Jazz will get worried. We'll have to be back by seven thirty at the latest." Dib grinned.

"That's all?" Danny dropped his hand.

"Besides, they'll be wondering why the Speeder's missing too."

"We can take the SPEEDER?!" Dib's eyes went about as wide as they could go, and his grin was bearing an eerie resemblance to the Cheshire Cat.

"Yeah, and we'll need to take weapons just in case." Dib blinked.

"Right." Danny turned around to head back up the stairs. "Where are you going?" Danny didn't even swivel his head.

"I made a map. It's rough, but I don't want to get lost, especially with you in tow."

"You've been in there enough times to make a map? And your parents don't know?" Danny quickly waved it off.

"It doesn't matter-and most of the stuff is very distinct." He quickly climbed the stairs, already chanting in his mind  _This is a bad idea, this is a bad idea…_  but he grabbed his map of the ghost zone and head back down anyways. It had been a while since he'd headed into the ghost zone as a human, and he was hoping nothing would go wrong. When he got back down to the lab, Dib was standing there in his school uniform again, the suit in his hands. He was bouncing in the balls of his feet, and Danny chuckled at how eager he was. He quickly unlocked the door, stuffing the map in his pocket. The portal opened without any prompting-there was some sort of link between the speeder and the portal, Danny knew-and Danny gripped the steering wheel. Dib hopped in beside him, his foot tapping on the floor. Danny slowly pressed the accelerator, and they eased their way into the other dimension.

The look on Dib's face when they entered the ghost zone was honestly priceless. His eyes were glittering, the green light reflecting off them and giving them an appropriate other-worldly quality. His mouth was just the tiniest bit open, like he was in shock. And his hands were clutching the cushioned seat for dear life. Danny chuckled, before announcing dramatically,

"Welcome… to the ghost zone."


	7. The Phantom Connection

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a headcanon that Danny does have a lair in the ghost zone, (it just took him forever to find because his ghostly instinct was skewed as he's only half ghost) and it's mostly like his regular room, but with little elements fro m the lab, and a closet full of plushies of everyone that's made any sort of impact, positive or negative, on his life. Hence the lair in this chapter, just wanted to explain that.

Dib had his face pressed against the window. "Tell me what you know. I want to know EVERYTHING." He announced to Danny. His fingers were tracing abstract shapes in the fog his breath made.

"Well, I'll tell about some of the places… the first ghost I saw-and actually talked to- in here was Walker, the warden of the prison. I've still got a thousand year sentence from him." He chuckled. Dib peeled himself away from the window to look back at Danny.

"What did you  _do_?" Danny shrugged.

"I was just there-and I was holding a camera, which was 'against the rules'." He mimed Walker's no-nonsense tone. "Walker's probably one of the most dangerous ghosts in here-for humans anyway." He spent a good fifteen minutes telling Danny about the ghosts that he'd encountered as a human-Box Ghost, Dora, (He'd played up what he'd done with the Fenton Fisher) and Poindexter (Obviously changing all of the stories around so he used weapons rather than his ghostly form.) Dib thought it was kind of funny his locker was so close to seven twenty four. Dib asked a lot of questions, most innocent enough that Danny answered honestly.

"What's with all the doors?"

"They all lead to a ghost's lair-or home, whatever you want to call it."

"Cool… so it's just ghosts who have one?" Danny nodded.

"As far as I know." He thought of his own 'lair', but of course didn't bring it up. "We're passing… I think this is Klemper's." He pointed at the refrigerator door, colorful magnets dotting the clean white surface. "He's a pain in the butt-every time I come in here, he always asks 'will you be my friend'?" Danny played up the childish accent, and Dib laughed.

"He sounds like Keef-he followed Zim and I around everywhere. We had to really go to extremes to get rid of him…" The pale boy shuddered. "Like hugging." Danny raised an eye.

"And  _how_  could  _huggin_ -"

"Hey, who's that green-skinned ghost?" Dib pointed out the window. He'd asked about random passing ghosts a few times, and Danny hadn't known any of them. "He seems to be coming in pretty fast…" Danny leaned over, at first not registering what he was seeing.

"Oh, that's just Tec-TECHNUS?" His eyes widened, and that tiny little warning signal that had been ringing at the back of his mind set off full volume. He usually couldn't sense ghosts in when in the ghost zone-otherwise, he'd freeze himself to death or something. He shoved the controls into the shocked Dib's hands and raced towards the back of the ship.  _Thank goodness we packed a few extra weapons…_  He grabbed an ecto-gun and a thermos before running back towards the cockpit.

"Who is that ghost? Is he evil or-"

"Yes-that Technus, ghost master of technology. If he gets too close to the ship…" He let the last words linger in the air, and Dib just nodded. His face seemed to have somehow turned even paler as Danny tossed him the gun. "If he gets within five feet, shoot, but I'll hold him off." He knew he couldn't risk transforming, but he might be able to distract him long enough for Dib to get a good shot and then Danny could suck him into the thermos… Danny hopped out of the ship, feeling the usual lightheadedness all humans in the ghost zone felt for a moment before shrugging it off. He landed on a floating chunk of ground. They were about a mile (He figured-distance was hard to tell here) from Skulker's island. Technus was still looking at the ship.

"Ah, this ship is lovely! And soon it shall be mine, for I, Technus-" Danny shouted up,

"DIB! NOW! SHOOT!" Technus looked down.

"Ghost child! Why are you-" He was suddenly hit by a blue light, and the ghost's eyes widened. He let out a short scream, before raising his hands and firing a blast of his own. Since Dib obviously didn't know how to work the controls, the ship's shields didn't flicker on and it hit the Specter Speeder full force. Danny's heart just about stopped when it hit the engine and the ship started spiraling down, past the tiny island and down into the abyss. He didn't even think, but dove after it, going ghost in mid-air. His glove caught the edge of the ship, and in an effort to make it lighter he turned the whole ship intangible. Straining, he pulled up with all of his might. Technus seemed to have fallen, but Danny didn't care. Dib could get hurt, and his parents would  _kill_  him if they came back and the speeder was gone. The halfa braced his feet on the island and pulled the ship up, thanking the heavens that it was much lighter in the ghost zone and that he'd had a lot of practice lifting heavy things. Finally, he managed to set it down. He wiped his forehead, but it took a moment to register.

"Oh, man-Dib!" He flew over and almost ripped open the door. The other teen was clutching the seat with a death grip, his fairly sharp nails poking a few holes into the fabric. His hazel eyes were frozen wide, and his mouth was open in a silent scream. "…Dib?" Danny repeated slowly, reaching over and gently tapping his shoulder. Dib whirled around, holding up his gun, his slightly narrowed eyes manic and his lips curled back, his teeth bared like an animal ready to attack. Danny immediately pulled back.

"I'm not going to hurt you…" Dib blinked a few times, before seeming to remember who Phantom actually was- a 'friendly ghost', so to speak. He shook his head, confused, before muttering something about a 'boot'. Or was it 'voot'? Either way, he'd advanced to staring at Danny, his brown eyes as wide as they could go again.

"…Danny?" He'd barely breathed it, but the mere word seemed to snap him out of his little trance. He scooted over in the seat, before hopping out of the ship. "Danny… Fenton?" Danny swallowed.

"No, it's Phantom." Dib shook his head slowly, in disbelief.

"Fenton… Phantom." Suddenly, he hit the side of his head with a fist, twisting his fingers into the weird lock thing that flew above his hair. "How didn't I SEE THAT?" He started pacing, seeming to forget that Danny was even there. "Yeah, you're a real genius! You could tell when there was a freaking  _alien_  in your classroom and that your  _teacher_  was a  _demon_  from day one, but as soon as you get  _one friend_  all that you've ever learned just goes  _right_  out the  _window_! No  _wonder_  I worked so much better alone!" He was obviously ranting, especially considering the loud gestures his hands were making along with the words spilling out of his mouth like a waterfall, and Danny floated back, trying to think of what to say himself.

 _No one's ever figured it out before, but you knew they would one day… but did it have to be him?_  Danny shot a glance up at Dib, who had moved on to quietly swearing in an alien-sounding language that seemed to consist of clicks and smooth sounding syllables. The tone left no doubt of what he was saying, though. Danny sighed.

"I don't know what you're thinking, but it's not-"

"It  _is_  what I think!" Dib shot back, finally looking back at Danny. His eyes quickly scaled the hazmat-suited ghost up and down in a split second, before resting on his face. "Irk, how didn't I see it  _before_?" Danny decided to ignore the first part ('irk' meant annoying, didn't it? …What the heck?) and just try to figure out how to explain it.

"Okay. You promised not to hunt me, right?" Dib blinked, clenching his fist that still had the Fenton ecto-gun.

"I said I'd consider it…" Danny swallowed.

"Look, I'll explain everything, okay? Just… don't shoot." Dib raised an eye.

"Fine… so, you're a ghost who hides among humans? The Fentons are just a cover, aren't they? Of course! No one would suspect a ghost to live among ghost hunters, you must've brainwashed them!" Dib grinned, holding the gun up to his waist level now and turning the barrel towards the ghost. Danny just stared at him, one of his toxic green eyes wide and the other narrowed in a 'you've got to be kidding me' sort of look.

"So, I, a ghost, would move in with the only family in town who could kill me on a pretty much daily basis." He rolled his eyes. "Do you want the real story or do you want to rope a few more conspiracy theories in?" Dib blinked, before grinning sheepishly and nodding, setting the gun down. Danny looked around- they'd probably want some privacy, and they really weren't too far… he closed his eyes and concentrated. He felt a warm tingle seep through his core, and unconsciously smiled. "Dib, get in the Speeder."

"What? But you said-"

"I'll explain in a minute, just get in the speeder." He opened his eyes again to see Dib with his head cocked to the side. He himself jumped in, crawling over to the driver's seat. In the rearview mirror, he saw Dib shrug and climb up next to him.

"So, where are we-" Just as Dib pulled the door closed, Danny pressed the gas, making them fly off faster than usual. "Wait-didn't Technus blow out the engine?"

"I'm a ghost. I can fly." Danny said shortly. There was a faint green glow surrounding the cockpit, barely noticeable, but Danny had learned levitation a few months ago and was using it now. "He didn't hit the main engine, but I'll be able to figure out how to fix it soon enough." Dib just nodded, settling back in his seat. His fingers started playing with the tears and holes in the fabric, especially the ones he'd made…

After a few minutes, they were there. Dib looked confused, but Danny grinned. His 'ghostly home' had become a regular stop on each visit into the ghost zone, and both Sam and Tucker had found it pretty cool. He slowly creaked open the door- black, with a white edge, and the 'DP' symbol he'd painted on, if somewhat messily- and gestured for Dib to jump in.

"What about the ship?"

"No one's going to touch it. Technus is down for the moment and it's filled with anti-ghost weapons. Plus…" Danny pointed to his ears. "It's loud." He grinned, before grabbing Dib's wrist and pulling the boy into the room. Dib slowly rotated his head, taking in the bed, the tile, and the lab table filled with all sorts of weapons. Danny had started posting newspaper articles praising Phantom (and one involving the 'million dollar bounty on his head' for the oddly fond memories it held) on the wall. The closet was closed, as he didn't want Dib to see his plush dolls quite yet. Danny flopped down on the bed, tapping the space next to him. Dib sat down, pawing at his pocket nervously. "So, what do you want to know?"

"Everything. From the beginning." Dib said, determined to get answers. Danny nodded, settling down and leaning his elbow on a pillow.

"We're going to be here for a while…" He chuckled before going all the way back to the day of the accident. "Well, my parents had always been ghost hunters and inventors, but I never really believed in them before they perfected their 'ghost portal'…" He made finger quotes. "At first, it didn't work and they got frustrated and left. That's when Sam convinced me to go in…"

* * *

Danny spilled nearly everything, from trying to gain control of his powers at the start to the unfortunate incident with Plasmius about a month ago. The two things he didn't bring up were the fact that Vlad was half-ghost as well (He only called any run-ins with him Plasmius and passed over his grudge with his dad and his crush on his mom. So, he left out what happened in Colorado with his mom) and his evil future self, which was one thing he really wanted to keep to himself. Dib listened intently, sometimes laughing but mostly staying serious. When Danny explained about Danielle, and her being a clone, Dib had seemed oddly fidgety, playing with his fingers and tapping his boots until Danny finished that story. The other boy took most of it in good humor, and he'd actually joked about meeting Desiree and wishing that his childhood hadn't stunk. Still, he stayed quiet for a while after that, seeming embarrassed that he'd admitted to it.

"Wow… I don't know what to say." Dib said when Danny finally finished. "That's… just… wow. I can't think of a single person who, when given powers like yours, would use them like you have. I mean, even I wouldn't! You're, like, a saint!" Danny chuckled.

"Oh, I wouldn't say that… I've done some pretty bad stuff."

"Yeah, but you put your life on the line every single day! I mean… I can relate with that, but-" He cut off again, his eyes distant. "I shouldn't have said that…" He muttered. Danny heaved a deep sigh.

 _Should I tell him that I know? It would make us even, but he might not trust me then!_  The halfa rolled around the options, before opening his mouth.

"Actually… I have to admit something."

"What?" Dib asked, his eyes falling back to Danny again.

"Promise me you won't freak out over this, okay?" Dib nodded slowly.

"Sure, what?" Danny cleared his throat and said fairly quickly,

"I was listening in on you and Jazz on Tuesday." Dib's eyes widened, and his already pale skin turned even whiter.

"…What?" He whispered. "…You were?" Danny nodded solemnly. Dib shifted a little away from him, his bony hands clawing the sheets.

"I had no idea… I wanted to know why you'd protected me from Dash…" Danny admitted, before slumping back on the bed frame.  _I knew it… he hates me now…_

"You… won't tell anyone?" Dib was still whispering, like if he spoke any louder he'd break himself into tiny pieces. Danny shook his head.

"How can I? You know  _my_  secret…" He looked up to see a small sly smile slide across Dib's face. It seemed to light up his eyes, and they flickered nearly black in the light. His teeth were just barely showing, but it still gave off the impression that he was an animal that had cornered its prey.

"So I do…" Danny sat up, his elbows still pushed into the plush mattress.

"Uh, that's kind of creepy…" Dib shook his head quickly.

"Right, right. So… do we have a deal?" Danny blinked, confused.

"A deal? What deal?"

"I won't tell anyone if you won't." Danny grinned-this was better then he could've hoped for. Neither of them had to hide anything anymore, and Dib didn't hate him for knowing his secret. Dib gripped Dib's thin fingers in his sleek, glowing glove before shaking.

"Deal."


	8. Guys and Dolls

Danny settled back on the bed again, smiling. "I never thought I'd be here today…"

"What do you mean?" Dib asked curiously, his eyes oddly wide and innocent. Danny stretched out his hand and waved it over the whole room.

"Here. In the ghost zone, a place I never thought existed, half ghost and talking with a kid who hunted aliens." He smirked. "Life really does take some weird turns." Dib laughed.

"Amen to that. Hey, think I could ever go ghost hunting with you?" Danny sat up.

"What?"

"Ghost hunting. I've got some great weapons." Danny pointed to Dib's backpack.

"I've seen it, remember? That reminds me… why did you need a thermos anyways?" Dib cast his eyes up left to the ceiling, thinking.

"I'm really good at making offensive weapons, but my defenses tend to leave a bit to be desired." He paused again. "Maybe I could take you to my apartment… you know a little about your parent's equipment, right?" Danny nodded.

"I guess… I'll just tell Jazz I'm going over to your apartment. She won't mind-she'll probably be excited I'm 'broadening my horizons'." Dib nodded.

"The less you have to lie, the better. Trust me; this is coming from someone who spent his whole life trying to uncover the truth." The skinny teen stood up. "Should we go now then?"

"Yeah… I'll get Tuck to help fix the Speeder later. It gets broken all the time; we'll be able to fix it pretty easy." Dib grinned.

"How on earth do you keep this a secret from your parents? They've never noticed  _anything_?" Danny shrugged.

"I rely on the fact that they believe ghosts are nothing but scum and will do anything to protect that belief. If I have to lie and take a few shots to the chest, so be it." Danny blinked, shifting the bed as he got up. He knew Dib sensed the sudden uncomfortable-ness in the air by the way the other teen started rubbing his arm nervously, the nails digging in. Suddenly, a small red stain started spreading across the boy's arm, but he didn't seem to notice.

"Uh, Dib? You're bleeding…" Danny pointed out slowly. Dib looked down, holding out his arm and blinking.

"Huh, I guess so…" He just rubbed his arm and dropped it again. "Doesn't matter. Let's go." Danny walked out, still glancing nervous looks at Dib's arm. "Actually, think you can get it fired up first? I want to check something."

"What? This is my room, whatever it is you can ask."

"What's in the closet?" Danny was a bit taken aback.

"Uh, not much…" It might be kinda embarrassing….

"Aw, c'mon! What, do you have dead bodies in there or something?" Dib teased lightly, laughing.

"Of course not!" To prove that it was nothing really bad, Danny strode over and threw open the closet. Of course, The Phantom and Fenton dolls fell out, as they had been leaning on the door like always. Why they always ended up with their faces mushed together was beyond Danny… Dib walked forward, picking them both up.

"What the heck are these? Dolls?"

"They came with the place. You can look at them if you want." Danny shrugged. He grabbed the Fenton doll that Dib had tossed to him as the other boy rooted through his closet. He could usually guess which ghosts where which- Danny had apparently done a good job of describing them, that and Dib had almost a computer-like memory, so most of the humans were familiar enough. Dib laughed at the loopy mustache Danny had doodled on Dash's face.

"Hey!" He pulled out a doll of himself, with a half-sly half-happy grin gracing his face. His wide, bright eyes were light brown, and his hair was true to gravity-defying form. He had his usual silver backpack on, and he was holding the original dark blue and pink gun. "How did you…"

"It's everyone I know. I don't know where they come from, but it's a little record." Dib just stared at the doll, his eyes showing that he found it kind of creepy. From the way he was sharply poking it, then glancing down at his torso, he thought it was a voodoo doll or something. "You can keep it if you want."

"Uh, no thanks… hey, what's this one?" Dib pulled another plushie out of the closet, and Danny's heart just about stopped when he saw which it was. "It has your symbol, but in black…"

"I don't remember that one." Danny lied, but from the way Dib raised his eyebrows it was obvious he knew the halfa wasn't telling the truth.

"Really." His tone was heavily sarcastic, so Danny had no choice to sigh heavily.

"I don't like talking about him…"

"But who is he? Some sort of ghostly relative or something? Something related to Phantom?"

"What? No. Phantom's not any different from me, we're one person." He grabbed the doll of his alternate future self. As always, his fingers tingled with heat when they passed the gently flickering flame-hair.

"Then who's that?" Dib pointed at 'evil Danny' again.

"I  _said_  I don't want to talk about it, okay?"

"Why? Is it, like, Phantom if he went nuts or something?" Dib asked, his hands now on his hips. "It looks older then you. But still, like you… saaaay, do you have time travel here?" THAT was  _far_  too close to the truth. From the look on Danny's face, parallel to a deer in headlights, it didn't take Dib long to realize he was right. "So, it  _is_  time travel?" Danny clutched the doll to his chest, his fingers curling around the muscular torso but sinking slightly into the odd ghostly fabric.

"What part of 'I'm not explaining this' do you not get?" Danny said through tightly gritted teeth. Dib obviously wasn't giving up though. He was on a roll.

"So, if there's time travel involved somehow…. Huh, I didn't think Amity was as far as that yet… but who could it be?" He took another look at alternate future Danny, before his eyes casually traveled to Danny's chest. The symbol was indeed nearly the same. "…wait… so, is that…" He looked closer, before suddenly snatching the plushie from Danny's fingers, examining it frantically. Danny reached up to grab it back, but Dib turned around, swiping with one hand back at Danny while looking the doll up and down.

"Give him back!" Danny demanded, finally reaching through Dib's body to grab the 'toy'. To his shock, he felt something… really weird. As he felt through the Pak, the consciousness suddenly flared red-hot. A jolt traveled up his arm. "Woah!" He managed to grab the doll, but pulled back as quickly as he could. Dib whirled around, glaring at him with eyes that shifted rapidly between brown and red.

"Hey,  _ **I**_ was  _ **observing**_  that  _ **thing**_!" His voice pitched up and down, both Dib and Zim, both tones angry. It reminded Danny of what possession probably looked like. He tossed the doll into the closet and held up his hand, the glove and door both glowing green as it slammed shut.

"We need to go. Just… calm down…" Danny said as soothingly as he could, but Dib still glared at him for a moment before his eyebrows smoothed out and he took a deep breath.

"…I  _guess_ …" He muttered, rubbing his arm. "I really hate when we do that…" He bit his lower lip. Dib's fingers had scratched open the cut, and now there were little tiny half-droplets of blood on his sharp nails. Danny swallowed, trying to ignore it.

"Seriously, do you want a band-aid or something?" Dib gave him a blank look. "Your arm is bleeding!" The boy looked down to his arm, before shrugging.

"So? I bleed all the time. This is nothing. Let's go." He pushed past Danny and threw open the door fairly dramatically. Danny, glad he decided to drop it quickly, followed, before floating up, squeezing past Dib, and climbing into the driver's seat. He turned the speeder around so the passenger door was closer to the door to the room, letting Dib climb in before they were off.

* * *

Luck was on their side as they made it back through the zone and out of the portal without incident. Danny phased Dib through the floors and out the door, avoiding Jazz in the kitchen.

"That felt  _weird_ …" Dib commented, shivering slightly. He was obviously missing his trench coat on the cool morning. "How do you get  _used_  to it?"

"How do you get used to an alien in your head?" Danny countered, and Dib grinned.

"Touché. I'll just wait out here."

"Sure-I'll be out in a minute." Danny opened the door and ran into the kitchen where his sister was sipping a steaming beverage. She'd been drinking a lot of coffee lately… "Hey, Jazz?" She looked up.

"Oh, hey Danny! You're up early!" He nodded.

"Yeah, anyways, Dib's at the door and he invited me to his apartment. I just wanted to let you know." A big smile spread across the girl's features.

"Danny, it's great you're being so nice to him."

"Yeah, he's pretty cool… so… see ya!" He waved, before walking back out to Dib. "Okay, we're clear." Suddenly, Dib grabbed his sleeve and started pulling him towards the back of Fentonworks. "Wha…?" From the manic grin on his face, it was clear Dib had something up his striped sleeve.

"Wanna race there?" Dib pulled off his cloth backpack and stuffed it into the Pak, the alien metal glinting in the sun. Danny's eyes flew open.

"In broad daylight? Sure,  _I'd_  be fine, Danny Phantom and all, but  _that_ -" He jabbed the Pak with his index finger, "-won't be!" Dib waved it off.

"I 'run' to skool every day, and no one notices." Danny twisted up his face, but shrugged. If Dib got caught, then he'd be the one getting into trouble, right? He quickly transformed and a sly smile slid across his face.

"How fast can you go?"

"A little over sixty, but any more and I tend to hit stuff…" Dib replied, shrugging as the metal legs flew out and he shot up a few feet. From the way his left eye was twitching he was obviously getting a rant from Zim, but to his credit Dib didn't mention it. "It's apartment 777 in the Casil building."

"That dump? Why the heck would you rent there?" Danny asked, intrigued.

"Because no one would care about the alien security upgrades." Dib replied with a shrug. "If you open the door, there's a whole wall of security and the whole place is rigged up." He grinned. "I guess it's what happens when two paranoid, technological people sharing a head have to live in the same place. Plus, they didn't question why no adults are ever there, and why a fourteen year old rents." After looking up for a moment, Dib finished, "I would've gotten a house, but… one, I didn't think they would let me being fourteen, and…" He swallowed. "…And I suppose I didn't honestly think I'd still be here. That I'd have not been kicked out, or driven myself nuts." Danny chuckled.

"You expected to be kicked out of a whole  _city_?" Dib raised an eye.

"You underestimate me. I've gotten kicked out of… let's see… McMeaties twice, Nasaplace four times, Bloaty's once but Gaz stepped in and they let me back, oh, and Mr. Chicky Licky's for the Chickenfoot incident. And most businesses don't like me anyways. I've had four neighbors move because of complaints…"

"Woah. You're busy, aren't you?" Danny commented. Dib nodded with a small smirk.

"That's what the 'Crazy ufo kid' gets. Anyways, are we going to race?" Danny nodded, before bending one knee down and placing both palms on the ground. He extended his other leg back in a track position, as Dib's metal legs flew out to full length.

"Ready, set… go!" Danny shot up into the air, doing a loop with a ecstatic whoop. Dib quickly raced forward, the metal legs making the human little more than a blur to Danny, who was giving him a good head start. After counting to ten, Danny flew after him, catching up on Hart Street. Dib wasn't even breathing hard, but was grinning widely, ducked behind an alley.

"You realize this isn't fair, right?" Danny called down. "I can fly over stuff, you can't…" Dib looked up.

"Oh yeah, good point… mind giving me a hand?" He held up a hand, with Danny grabbed in his glove. "Just set me down on top of that building." Dib pointed at a building with a flat roof about ten feet away. Danny nodded, flying quickly over and letting Dib drop a few feet. "All right… now!" Dib took off, his eyes narrowed and his fists clenched, arms pinned to his side. Danny again waited for a few seconds, before following him.

 _I'll let him win._  The ghostly teen decided, lazing along but moving just fast enough to make it look like he was putting forth actual effort. As they approached the building, Dib finally looked back. He'd landed in a sort of ninja pose, with one foot in front of him and the other tightly under his body, his fingertips pressed against the roof.

"You're not even trying!" Danny waved a hand at him.

"I can go at… what was it, a hundred and thirty three miles per hour last count? You wouldn't have a ghost of a chance." Dib's eyes widened.

"Whoa, you can go  _that_  fast?" Danny nodded with a grin, before crossing his arms and flying in a large loop.

"Yep. Flying's amazing." He looked to the building that Dib had mentioned. "Hmm… I wonder…"

"What?" Dib had retracted the metal legs, and was standing on the roof with a perplexed expression. Danny grinned at him, before suddenly dropping out of the visible spectrum and reaching down, grabbing the boy and turning him invisible as well. "Danny, what are you- oh!" Dib's tone flew from confused to happy in about two seconds flat as he realized what the other teen had offered. "Sweet!" Danny lifted Dib into his arms, in a typical 'princess' position. Dib laughed.

"This is the point where I start falling over in damsel in distress mode, I'm guessing?"

"Of course." Danny retorted briskly with a chuckle as his legs melted into a tail and he started flying towards Dib's apartment. The Pak was pressed against Danny's chest as Dib took in the city from above, but the little gasps of joy and the happy, excited sounds Dib made every few seconds made it worth it. Danny sped up, blurring the skyline below them slightly as they approached the Casil building.

"Amity looks so amazing from above… and the people look  _tiny_!" Dib snickered as they landed in front of the doors. Danny switched back to human before letting the invisibility fade away. Dib started rummaging around in his pocket as they walked through the door. A bored looking brunette woman waved half-heartedly at them.

"Welcome to the-" Dib cut her off quickly.

"Already have a room, thanks." He pulled out his faded room key before muttering, "I've been renting here for almost a week and a half, they're not very good with faces…" Danny felt a twinge of pity. Dib literally had no one to come home to-sure, Jazz was excitable, and his parents could be a nightmare with their equipment when they wanted help testing it, but they all meant well. Dib had the annoying voice in his head. That was it. They used the elevator, and Danny tapped his foot impatiently. The soft music was subtle, but faintly annoying. After thirty seconds, the doors opened and Dib quickly stepped out, grabbing Danny's wrist and dragging him to the room at the end of the hall. After pushing the key in the slot and the light turned green, he gently twisted the handle. Danny's mouth dropped at the glowing blue barrier behind the normal wood door.

"Whoa, how did you-" Dib tapped his forehead with a smirk.

"Two paranoid tech people." He reminded Danny. A small scanner appeared, and Dib pressed his palm flat against it. After entering a code that Dib told Danny was fifteen digits long, Dib pulled out a small swiss army knife from his pocket.

"What's that for?" Danny asked, curious. Dib looked at him, before pricking his own finger. He did it straight on, so it was only a tiny hole. A single drop of blood squeezed out, a stark contrast to the pallid skin. "What was  _that_  for?" Danny repeated, staring at Dib's finger. Dib just wiped the blood on the scanner, which immediately retracted and the wall swung open.

"Security. Anyone doesn't do it perfect, they got shocked." Dib tensed. "Oh, and I probably should have warned you about…"

"About what?" Danny cocked his head to the side, before suddenly his vision was cut off and his face was covered by something cold. From the smell and smooth feel it was metal, but from the weird, almost spicy smell it obviously spent a lot of time around Mexican food...

"…Him." Dib finished, but Danny didn't hear the other over the sudden onslaught of gibberish.

"Hiya you must be master's new friend they was talking about you and are you really all floaty and cleary and do you like piggies?" The metallic voice echoed around the living room and rung in the captured boy's ears as Danny tried to pry the thing off.

"Get off Danny and come  _here_!" Dib commanded, and Danny's face was suddenly free again as he took a gasping breath. The boy looked down at the thing that had 'attacked 'him-it was silver, with glowing sapphire eyes that were wide. Legs shaped like cones floated without support, and long arms that looked like striped spaghetti ended in mitten-like sharp claws. A little radio antennae was perched atop the thing's head as it gazed up at Danny with what he assumed was something akin to admiration. Lights on its shoulder twinkled merrily as Dib introduced it.

"Danny… meet Gir." As the little robot waved, Danny looked up at Dib with a weak grin.

"Got any more surprises?" Dib smirked back.

"Oh, I've got plenty… if you're up for it."


	9. Possession

"So, how much time do you spend here?" Dib had settled them both down on the couch with sodas.

"More then you'd think, actuall-no Gir! Go away!" Dib flicked the robot's antennae, which made Gir's eyes water.

"Aw, but I wanna pway wif' you guys!"

"Go make some tacos or something!" The little robot perked at that, chirped out an 'okay!' and scampered off to the kitchen. Dib sighed. "He can get pretty annoying…"

"Why did you even bring him then?" Danny took a sip of his soda. Ugh. It tasted like lemonade, which wouldn't be so bad, except for it seemed there was about a pound of salt crammed into the small can. Dib didn't seem to notice.

"I don't really know, actually. Company, mostly. It's not like I could bring my sister, and Zim obviously didn't have anyone…"

" **Hey! I resent that!"**

"It's true…" Danny's head jolted back slightly. Zim's voice had come out of Dib, and the other boy didn't seem to have noticed-that, or he didn't care. Dib started playing with the label on his can.

"Uh, do you do that a lot?"

"When we're alone, yeah. He likes hearing his own voice." Dib remarked, his tone sarcastic while an eye roll accompanied it.

" **I do not!"**

"Yeah, and mentioning your name every third sentence has nothing to do with that?" Zim apparently stayed quiet, as Dib nodded. "I thought so."

"I'm going to have to get used to that, aren't I?"

"Yep." Dib told him, smirking. "I don't want to explain everything he's saying twice, so you'll have to learn to live with this."

"It's not that, it's…" Danny rubbed the back of his neck with one palm, the other tightening around his moist can. "…You kinda look possessed." Dib's head snapped back at that. His eyes were wide, and he bit his lip. "No, it's-"

"No. I get it. You just don't… it…" Dib' head dropped, his sharp nails tightening into the fabric of the couch cushion.

"…Dib?" Danny asked quietly. "Are… are you o-"

"It's happened before." Dib said quietly. "Possession. He's taken over before. " It was Danny's turn to widen his eyes in shock.

"…What?" His voice was hushed.

"I'm forcing him back, he can't hear us." Dib whispered back, his voice strained like he was trying to hold back a dam on his own. "Sometimes… I get this feeling that… something's wrong, you know? Like, I went to bed, but I've woken up on the wrong side. Or… or I fall asleep somewhere and wake up in a totally different room. I only get a few hours of sleep every few days, but I feel like unless I'm always awake he can just use me…" Dib sucked in a breath, terrified hazel eyes fixed tightly on Danny's blue ones.

"The… the first night we were 'together'…. I almost died…I'd passed out from shock in my room… I woke up on the other end of town, beaten up and with a slick gorey knife in my hand. There were men around me, but… but… their hearts weren't beating… I couldn't hear anything but my ringing ears, and… and…" Dib's voice dropped another decibel, making him barely audible. He wasn't even speaking to Danny anymore, his eyes wild and lost. "…I was covered in so much of it… so much  _blood_ …" Danny's breath hitched. Dib… Dib had  _murdered_  someone? In the cold blood? After a small hiccup, the boy continued, shaken but the words spilling out like a waterfall, racing around each other and tripping.

"Zim wouldn't talk about it, said only that he hadn't meant to… he hadn't thought the Pak thing through and was blowing off steam… he didn't think he'd get knocked out, that when I woke up I would be  _me_ …" Dib looked to Danny, his irises minuscule underneath his glasses. Danny, not sure what else to do, leaned forward. Dib instantly scooted forward and wrapped his arms around Danny, pulling him tight. "Didn't think I would know what he'd made me do... I… it was hard to try and trust him after that… he's still trying to hear what I'm saying now…" Wiping his nose, Dib straightened up, quickly letting go of the halfa. "D-don't mention this again, okay? I… I don't want him to think I'm suspecting him of anything…"

"Dib, why can't you take that stupid thing off?" Danny hissed to him, heart skipping a beat as Dib shook his head.

"I told you. I'd die. And… and he's something. It's almost like drugs-you know it's bad for you, but I wouldn't be able to make it without him-someone egging me on, who actually understands me, no matter how twisted his version of reality can- ah!" Dib's head snapped up, and he clutched his head, hair swinging about wildly. Danny shuddered, reaching out to touch the boy's shoulder, but Dib smacked him away. From his hands flying every which way, it wasn't on purpose. Danny steeled himself, knowing what he had to do. From the jolt he'd received before, it wouldn't be pleasant, but he had to find out what-or  _who_ \- was wrong with his friend. Sucking in a deep breath, Danny phased into Dib.

* * *

It was dark, and quiet. Danny's sneakers clicked on red tile as he looked around. Wallpaper decorated with tiny ufo's and posters saying odd things like 'I eat food' surrounded him. A large TV was playing, showing a picture of Dib's apartment. "Why would Dib be thinking of  _this_  place?"

"He wasn't. I was." A slow chuckle pulled Danny out of his brief stupor. He spun around to see Zim, in all his irken glory. The alien had his hands tightly clasped together, but draped down his front almost like he was praying, but with fingers pointing towards the floor. Antennae were floating at a relaxed position a few inches above Zim's head.

"What happened?" Zim sighed wistfully, looking to the ceiling.

"He tried to tell you something better kept to himself…"

"You made him  _kill_  someone!"

"So?" The complete loss of compassion in Zim's voice made Danny's stomach clench and churn sickeningly.

"From what I've seen, that kind of thing would DESTROY him."

"It didn't, so what's the problem?"

"You don't get it, do you? You don't even seem to  _know_  hi-" At that, Zim lunged forwards. He grabbed Danny's collar and pinned him to the wall, a demented expression twisting his face as a blue laser orb suddenly warmed Danny's face.

"Know him?" Zim hissed. "KNOW HIM?" He sucked in a breath before going off, in full rant mode. "I know the hyuman better than anyone on this filthy planet! Anyone in the _universe_! We've done NOTHING but study each other, learn weaknesses and strengths for YEARS! I've been inside his head long enough to KNOW him!" His voice rose in volume, until the irken was practically screaming.

"Where is he?" Danny demanded, causing Zim to shove the laser closer to his face. With a scowl, Danny transformed and shoved Zim back.

"He's currently trying to get back control." Zim smirked, bemused. "It's quite easy to push him back, actually…"

"Let him go!" Danny swung at Zim, but the alien dodged him easily. With a snap of gloved fingers, Danny was wrapped up in a bundle of thick lavender wires that had erupted from the wall.

"You can do nothing to me in here, Danny-beast. I have complete control." Zim smirked, tightening the restraining with a mere glance. Danny sucked in a breath, before blowing out with a blast of icy breath. Zim froze-not literally, but was rooted to the spot. It didn't take long for him to suddenly start freaking out, however. "NO! YOU-YOU CAN'T DO THAT IN-" Suddenly, Danny heard a sickening creak, like an icicle about to drop from a cave ceiling. The tubes released Danny as Zim held up a hand. It was glowing bright red, and the tubes flashed the same color for a split second before sucking back into the walls. Danny stared at them for a moment before redirecting his gaze to Zim, who looked a cross between fuming and scared.

"No. No ice." His voice was almost quiet and reserved, and Danny actually floated back a few inches in shock. "Leave. Now."

"Bu-"

"I'll give Dib control back, but GO!" With a sudden violent sideways slash of Zim's hand, Danny found himself catapulting out of Dib's body. He slammed into the side of the couch, groaning. His eyes squeezed shut, Danny pried them open to see Dib blink his own brown eyes, shaking his head frantically.

"Ugh…" Danny found that, for the first time since he'd heard Zim in the lab that night that…

He was scared of Dib.

Danny stood up right as Dib started speaking. "Hey, when did you ch-"

"I don't want to talk about it. I'm gonna go, actually, okay?" Dib looked confused.

"What… what did he do?"

"Nothing that you need to worry about."

"I need to worry about what he says!" Dib started breathing in and out quickly, obviously scared for his friend.

"It really was nothing, okay? I just want to go home."

"You'll come back, right?" The desperate, lonely look in Dib's eyes almost made Danny's heart break.

"Yeah. I'll be back." With that, Danny phased through the door, clenching his fists to his side as he flew through the roof.

He needed to think.


	10. A Day in the Life

The next day at school couldn't come slow enough for Danny. He was caught between wanting to see Dib, and wanting to stay as far away from the other teen as possible. What had happened had really freaked him out, honestly. The only thing that could even come close in comparison to it was when Tucker had gotten powers from Desiree and they had argued in Paulina's body. It was like they were in Paulina's room, oddly-very pink and frilly, but the glowing green from Tucker's energy had made the entire consciousness shake as they had swapped insults.

"No, this was different…" Danny muttered to himself, picking up his backpack and slinging it over his shoulder after making the final adjustments on the Speeder to fix it. A sudden thought struck him.

_Is it always like that for Dib? Sometimes battling for control in his own body, not knowing what he'd done when he shoved his way back into the real world?_ The only time Danny could think of that could compare to THAT was the first disaster with Freakshow-something he definitely didn't want to dwell on at the moment. After running back up the stairs from the lab, Danny grabbed a bagel, waved to his sister, and raced out the door, transforming in mid-air. He sighed as the weight of his backpack disappeared to heaven-knew-where like always, drifting along on the breeze. He had fifteen minutes before school started, and he was going to enjoy every second of it.

Danny executed a perfect triple loop, before going for a mid-air figure eight. Flying always helped to clear his head, and as he shot up and down all of his worries started to simply… disappear. Cut away like balloons on a string, and floating into the sun until they were mere dots. The ghost let out a content sigh. Nothing compared to doing aerial stunts that would make most air force pilots get sick. The time flew by, and Danny loved every solitary second of it. Still, soon enough, his watch beeped that homeroom started in a minute and he shot towards the school. He dropped into the bushes and managed to make it into class just as the bell rang.

"Ah, there you are Mr. Fenton." Mr. Lancer said, gesturing for the teenager to sit down. "Now, today we're going to do a practice ghost drill." Several kids groaned. "I know this is routine to many of you, but they've got a better system-" Suddenly, Danny's ghost sense went off. Two seconds later, Dib jumped in his seat. At the exact same time, both boys' hands shot up into the air as they said in unison,

"Can I go to the bathroom?" Mr. Lancer raised an eye.

"If this is a trick to get out of the drill-"

"I promise it isn't sir!" Dib said quickly. Danny stared at him. How did  _Dib_  know there was a ghost nearby? There was nothing else it could be, but Dib had been looking forward when Danny's ghost sense had gone off, so he couldn't have seen it…

"All right then. You two may go, but I expect you back quickly." His withering gaze on Danny made the boy swallow and nod before grabbing Dib's collar and practically hauling him out the door. Danny let go of the other boy's coat when they were outside the room.

"How did  _you_  know there's a ghost nearby?" He hissed, poking Dib in the shoulder. Dib's calm face helped Danny suck in a deep breath.  _No… you don't need to freak out…_  Dib pointed to his back.

"Ectoplasmic energy detector. Perfected it last night. It's a little chip installed into the Pak. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get into a disguise…" Dib's mouth half hung open.

"You expect to just go out there and  _fight_?" Dib blinked.

"Why not? Didn't you?"

"Yeah, but I-"

"Had ghost powers you could barely control at the time. And  _I_  have about twelve years of practice training plus whatever advice Zim gives me. I'm  _going_  to help, whether you want me to or not." Danny knew the blazing determination in Dib's eyes-he'd seen it in Sam's and Tucker's faces when they refused to be left behind. There was no way Danny was going to win this argument. With a sigh, Danny nodded.

"Just be careful." Dib's entire face lit up as he yanked his left sleeve up and pressed a small button on the side of his watch. Danny backed up in shock as a black mesh of something shiny slid up Dib's arm. It spread out like a time lapse of a spider web, covering everything on the other boy (except for the middle of his glasses) within seconds. Dib grinned at Danny's bewildered face.

"Gotta love irken tech, huh?" He floated into the air, tiny blue flames from an unseen jet flickering under his boots. Now clothed entirely in black, his hair pushed down by the odd disguise, the boy was entirely unrecognizable except for the backpack that had been covered in the thick 'fabric'.

"How-"

"Nanobots. Now c'mon!" Dib sounded far more excited then he really should have… Danny went ghost, leading the way. Dib was wobbling, obviously not used to the jets as he fumbled around in mid-air.

"If a ghost sees you, they're just gonna laugh you know." Danny informed Dib, trying not to snicker himself.

"They will  _not_!" Dib protested, his voice projecting teasing hurt. A voice echoed around from the hallway next to theirs.

"Where  _are_  you, whelp?!" Danny's eyes widened. Skulker. Not good. If Dib got caught in the middle of this…

"Dib, you might want to stay ou-"

"There you are!" They rounded the corner to see the hunter with his gun aimed first at Danny's locker, then the boy's face.

"Paws off, Skulker!" Danny growled, throwing himself forward. Dib looked confused.

"The hunter?" Skulker turned to see the newcomer, at least to him.

"Ah, who's this?" Dodging Danny's attack, he swooped closer, making Dib flinch and shove his hand into his backpack.

"Uh… 'the ninja'?" Danny bit his lip, trying not to laugh.

" _That's_  the best you can come up with?"

"Hey, I didn't have time to think of a good one!" To Danny's surprise, Dib shot up in the air and grabbed the sign above the nurse's office. He swung around in a huge circle, clicking his legs together and slamming into Skulker, knocking him into a locker. The loud 'ting!' of ghostly metal crunching against cheap rusting earthly metal echoed through the hall as Danny blinked at Dib.

"Never mind… that 'ninja' thing actually could  _work_." Danny muttered, flying forward and punching Skulker in the face. The hunter flinched, snarling at him.

"I'll get you for that one, whelp!" Danny went intangible just as Skulker shot at him from a gun that had appeared out of his right arm. The halfa rotated to see a hole in a locker. Luckily, it looked empty.

"Ooh, close one!" The halfa teased. Dib, who'd been watching, suddenly disappeared. Both ghost's glowing green eyes widened, but Danny grinned. It seemed Dib had upgraded his stealth suit as well. Skulker whirled his head around.

"How did he do that? I thought only ghosts and the Huntress-"

"I've got a few tricks up my sleeve." Dib hissed from above Skulker, before a red beam struck the ghost in the head. The ghost froze, his eyes still frozen wide, as his suit started sparking.

" _How_  did you-"

"I love tech sometimes, don't you?" Dib's voice drawled, from right next to Danny. "If you grab him, I can use my thermos." Danny nodded.

"Right." The ghost boy flew forward, concentrating on grabbing Skulker's arm. The red sparks were still shooting everywhere, and Danny leaned his head back to avoid an unpleasant shock. "Any time now…"

"Already on it." Another red light shot out of a thermos floating in mid-air, and Danny let go of the hunter's arm as the ghost was sucked up with a long yell. Dib shimmered into view. "Did it work?" He shook his thermos, which Danny noticed had red and blue highlights instead of the normal green, before Danny responded.

"Yep." Dib landed on the floor, bouncing slightly as the jets shut off.

"And now we just… go back to class?"

"Yep." Danny double checked to make sure no one else was in the hallway before turning human again. Dib had a huge grin as he followed Danny, pressing his watch and retracting his disguise.

"That was  _sweet_! I've  _never_  used that much tech in a fight before!" Danny peeked into the classroom. Everyone was still there-they must have canceled the drill. Figured. Suddenly, Dib grabbed the back of his collar and pulled him away from the door. Danny whirled around to see Dib press a finger to his lips and pull out a watch identical to the one he had on before handing it to Danny.

"What's this?" Danny asked, curious. He held it out like a dead spider- warily, and dangling from between his thumb and forefinger.

"It's a communicator. It… that one belonged to my sister, but… " Dib shifted his feet. "When I left, she gave it back. Said she wouldn't need it anymore." Danny felt his heart sink. Dib really trusted him… He strapped the watch on his wrist.

"Thanks." He smiled weakly at Dib, who beamed at the approval. "I'll go in first; Lancer'll go easier on  _you_ …" Dib nodded.

"Sure." Danny pushed the door open and walked back in. As usual, everyone turned to look at him. Mr. Lancer gave him a quick glare, but nodded at Danny's seat.

"Sit down." The teacher's voice was curt, and Danny hurried to obey, practically running to his desk. About five seconds after he sat down, Dib peeked his head in.

"Sorry…" The boy muttered.

"I'll let you off with a warning,  _this_  time." Mr. Lancer warned. "Don't let it become a habit like it has for Danny." Dib's fists clenched ever so slightly, and even from halfway across the room Danny could tell his teeth were gritted as he spoke, trying to remain in a civil tone.

"It won't, I can assure you." The teacher apparently didn't notice the tension radiating off the teen as he waved Dib into his seat.

"The drill was canceled due to an actual detection of a ghost. We figured it would be safer to stay in classrooms." Mr. Lancer nodded the whole class, as Dib had just settled himself back down into the desk next to Danny's. "In fact, they're sending video footage of the ghost to our rooms-" Danny tensed up as the teacher glanced at his computer. "Oh. Apparently the ectoplasmic energy shorted out the video, like every time they try this," (he muttered something to himself that Danny couldn't hear) "But there's a still image."

"Was the ghost boy there?" Paulina asked, his voice almost a swoon, at the same time Valerie called "Was Phantom there?" Mr. Lancer checked again.

"Ah, yes, he  _seems_  to- what's this?" He clicked his mouse a few times and typed something in. A moment later, an image filled the screen. The picture showed Danny, floating in the background with a slightly awed expression on his face. Skulker's side was on the extreme right of the screen, and a black figure was connected to the hunter ghost by a long slender shape. The still had been from when Dib had kicked Skulker into the lockers, and a few kids gasped.

"What's  _that_?" Nathan called.

"No,  _who's_  that?" Valerie countered, sounding curious, but at the same time slightly worried.

"That thing doesn't look human, you can't see a face…" Someone called.

"But there's a glare up by the top of the frame! That must be the eyes!" A girl Danny remembered as being named Sophie replied.

"C'mon, it's a shadow on the frame!"

"No way, that's way too developed!" The argument passed around the room. Danny looked over at Dib to see how the boy was taking it, but to his slight surprise, the boy was smirking. Not an 'good for me' grin either, and 'all according to plan' smirk. Danny decided to stay out of it- let the kid have his moment of glory.

"I'm telling you, it was a mirage!" This time it was a girl with a bright yellow headband and a brown t-shirt. Dib perked up at that.

"Mirage, huh… hmm…" Danny let a small grin slip, bending over.

"Works a lot better than 'Ninja'…" The other teen nodded thoughtfully in agreement.

"That it does, Danny, that it does…"

* * *

"Duck!" Danny yelled to the black-clad figure beside him. The other hastened to follow the order, managing to escape a scalping by mere centimeters.

"Whoa, close one!" The other laughed. "I almost got hit that time!" Danny shot up a shield, protecting himself from a wayward attack from the skinny ghost girl. She wore a dress made from brown and white feathers, and from the way her narrow sulfur yellow eyes were glowing dangerously and her long ponytail was whipping in self generated energy, she  _definitely_  wasn't happy.

"Leave me  _alone_!" She yelled, shooting a yellow ecto-ray at Danny. The boy managed to fly up just in time, the blast barely singing his suit.

"Now!" The halfa yelled down to his companion. "Get her!" The tall one in black- Dib, of course- fumbled through his backpack.

"Uh, where… ah!" He grinned, pulling out a huge metal-glove? The contraption looked like a shorter version of the Reality Gauntlet, albeit with a thermos strapped to the top, and Dib quickly pulled on a red eyepiece before aiming the palm at the ghost girl with a manic smile.

"Bye bye." A green light shot out of the ring in the center of the flat side, and her cat-like eyes widened before she shrieked, sounding like a dying animal.

"No! LET ME GO!" Like every other ghost that day, she lasted a mere second before being sucked up into a thermos in the end.

"Where'd you get that glove thing?" Danny asked, landing in the sidewalk and straightening a crick in his back.

"The blueprints were for an arm-mounted food launcher I made in elementary skool." Dib shrugged. "I improved it so it could shoot ectoplasm and, well, do that." He pointed at the thermos as it wiggled slightly. Danny raised an eye.

"You designed  _that_  thing in  _elementary school_?" Dib nodded.

"Took me about ten hours…" Danny blinked.

"Every time I think nothing about you can surprise me any more…" The other boy laughed at that.

"I think the same of you, honestly…" He pulled out the thermos, looking at it. "The fact someone could make something like this is pretty incredible…" Dib glanced back up. "Especially considering your dad… er…" Danny laughed.

"I know, right? For all that he messes up, he can definitely do  _some_  things right." He winced. "I've learned that the hard way." The human let his gaze drift to the sky.

"Fifteen more minutes?" Danny stretched out one last crick in his neck before nodding.

"Sure…"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to call Dib 'The Shadow' before I realized that 'Shadow' technically was a ghost already, (Johnny 13's shadow) so this was my second choice. Also, the ghost was my OC. Don't worry, she'll never show up again. This is where I left off on fanfiction.net, so updates will now come much slower.


	11. Trust in Me

A/N: It hasn't been that long, right? Right?

Okay, it's been four years. I am so _so_ sorry. I wrote this story when I was fourteen and I'm seventeen now, but a few fics on my watch list updated after multiple years and I'm not letting this puppy go down as dead, so let's do this. (The first part of this chapter was written a few years ago, but the second half and all future chapters will be written currently. Apologies if my style changed.)

This chapter is a bit short, but the next is when we get into the stuff that I'm the most excited about! Hope some of you are still sticking around to see it.  
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They'd settled into a routine. Danny would show up first, beat off the ghost, and if he needed help, Dib would come in. Dib had gone back to eating in the corner alone, though- or at least as alone as he ever could be. Danny figured he just didn't want people to think he was nuts for talking to himself all the time.

However, it didn't take long for Team Phantom to catch on that Danny had picked up a new sidekick.

"All right, who is it?" Sam clunked her salad container down, staring at Danny. He looked back at her.

"Who's who?"

"This 'Mirage' character. Who is it?"

"Yeah," Tucker dropped down next to her, pulling a piece of lettuce off his burger. "I was wondering that too."

"Well…" Danny hated leaving them out of the loop, but he wasn't sure how well they'd react to someone else knowing. After all, Jazz herself wasn't taken that kindly, and she was his _sister_. "It's a friend, that's all. He's just getting started."

"So it's a he," Sam mused. "Gee, I wonder-" Her eyes widened. "Wait, does that mean it's-" The girl's head whirled around, to the corner where Dib was settled.

"Got it in one." Danny stirred his soggy mashed potatoes, jabbing at a lump to break it into pieces. "He's actually pretty good, but-"

"Dude, how do you know he won't turn on Phantom?" Tucker asked, leaning closer and brushing his tray with one sleeve.

"I was getting to that." Danny sucked in a deep breath through his teeth. "Well… he figured it out."

"He _what_?" Sam dropped her fork. "How?"

"He got into trouble, I was nearby, I had to help, and he just… put the pieces together, I guess." Danny glanced at Dib, who was chewing viciously on a sandwich. "We agreed on a truce. I'm showing him the ropes, how ghosts work in Amity, then he's going to strike off on his own. Sort of like Val, but, y'know, without the 'trying to waste me' part." Sam and Tucker glanced at each other.

"Danny, there's no way you know you can trust him." Sam said urgently, placing a palm on his wrist, but he pulled back a little. She slid her hand back, staring at it for a moment as if it was a hunk of steak.

"I just… he trusted me with something, okay?" Danny could sense a fight brewing. "I don't want to break his trust, so he won't break mine. He has everything to lose. I have a lot too. Will you guys trust me with this?" Sam looked rather like she'd smelled something bad, squinching up her nose, but finally nodded.

"I guess. But I still don't like this."

"If you're sure…" Tucker shrugged. "I trust you. But be careful, dude." He moved his head slightly to the right, and when Danny shifted his gaze Valerie was poking at her food.

"This is different…" Danny muttered, before standing up. "I'm… not that hungry."

As he moved to dump his tray, a sick feeling settled into the pit of Danny's stomach, like by gaining an ally he was stretching the trust he had with his best friends. When he sat back down, Tucker immediately launched into something about a new game, and Sam was nibbling on a piece of tofu, rolling her eyes. Danny could still sense tension in the air, and he knew this conversation wasn't over yet- not by a long shot. But for now, at least, there was a bit of peace he immediately grasped at.  
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"Hey, something wrong?" Dib asked. Danny had beaten off Ember and she was resting in the thermos, but Dib had grabbed his arm before Danny had a chance to fly off.

"Nah, I'm fine."

Dib let go of him. "Well, if you're sure." He paused. "I'm not ticking anyone off by helping you, right?"

Danny froze, and Dib quirked an eyebrow. "I got it, didn't I?"

"Yeah, but don't worry about it." Danny gently hit Dib in the shoulder, and Dib started rubbing it.

Danny laughed. "Ember hit you what, three times? And that's what hurts?"

"It hurts because that's where she hit me." Dib muttered.

"Hey, chin up. You'll get used to it." Danny smiled, and after a moment Dib smiled back.

"I'd better, or Zim'll never shut up about how often I'm hitting the floor instead of the ghost."


	12. Caged

Dib woke up in a cage. 

Well. That hasn't happened in nearly a year. 

He realized he had been laying on his back, and _that_ woke him up fully. 

"Zim?" Dib shot up to his knees, feeling desperately for his Pak. He was in his pajamas, and his fingers slipped through the hole in the back to feel two deep indents in his spine. 

The Pak was gone. 

"Okay, Dib. Focus. You're in a cage, Zim is gone, and you have no idea how long you have to live." He took a deep breath. "You've been in worse."

Dib peered through the bars of his cage. He was in some sort of lab. An eerie green light glowed from somewhere to his left, and there were scattered medical tools and weapons on a few tables to his right. In front of him was a set of stairs. 

Huh. He'd expected at least a cool elevator. 

"Dib. So we meet at last." Dib grabbed the bars of his cage, squinting, since at least his captor had left him his glasses. 

A vampire ghost greeted him. He hadn't seen him before, but he looked vaguely familiar.

"So, am I in the ghost zone, or are you just exceptionally good at hiding in the real world?" Dib asked, and the ghost chuckled. 

"You're not as slow as you look."

"Hey!" Dib protested. "What do you want? Have I interrupted a ghost blood feud or something?"

The ghost grinned, and a shiver ran down Dib's spine at his fangs. "I think I'll let your friend explain."

"My friend?" Dib blinked twice. "Who-"

Zim walked into view. 

Zim. Whose body had died over six months ago. 

Dib rubbed his glasses, but that only smudged up the glass. He pulled them off, cleaned them on his shirt, then replaced them on his face before squinting closer. 

Zim's body hadn't miraculously reappeared from the dead. Instead, the inside plugs of his Pak appeared through a translucent hologram that was somehow holding it up. 

"Zim." Dib's voice was flatter than he could have imagined it being. 

"Dib." Zim said, before waving at the ghost. "Leave us be, Plasmius. We have much to discuss."

"All right," Plasmius said in a voice that clearly told Dib he was just going to watch from the cameras in the corner. Creep. He flew through the ceiling, leaving Zim and Dib alone. 

"So, how long until I kick the bucket? I don't have a life clock like you did." Dib kept his voice light, trying not to let Zim see how much his betrayal hurt. 

"About sixty years, unless you do something stupid." Zim smirked, and the hologram flickered. "Which is likely."

"Wha- but-"

"You think I'd tell you you could get the Pak off whenever you wanted and not die?" Zim crossed his arms. "I thought you weren't that dumb, Dib, but you cease to amaze me."

Dib gritted his teeth. "So, what's with the ghost?"

"He's going to get me a body."

"You already had one!"

Zim narrowed his eyes. "I did this so we could both live by ourselves."

At that, Dib stared. "You... did it for me?"

"Took you long enough." Zim's holographic lips quirked up into an eerie grin. "All I had to do was offer some insight on irken technology. He thinks he can take over the world with it."

"Can he?" Dib's fingers tightened around the bars.

"Of course not. I rather need Earth in one piece, thank you. The decoding on the weapons would take decades."

"So you're tricking him." Dib said flatly. "So you can leave me here to rot and go on your own again."

"You don't get it, do you?" Zim gritted his teeth. "I thought you were smarter than this. You still don't trust me, do you?"

"Considering my current situation, I think I'm warranted! Why didn't you tell me? I'm sure we could have figured something out!"

"Dib-" 

"Just get out of here."

"This talk isn't over."

"Yeah, I'm sure you love hearing the sound of your own voice again." Dib muttered, and Zim stomped away, up the stairs. (The fact that he had no weight lessened the impact a fair bit.)

Dib sighed, slumping back and draping his hands over his legs. His back rested on the bars of the cage, the cold metal uncomfortable. 

He fidgeted a little. 

"If I still had the Pak, I could break out, but if I still had it, then this wouldn't be happening." He mused to himself, brushing his hand through his hair. 

When he did, his sleeve fell down a bit, revealing his wrist communicator. The one that matched the one he'd given Danny during their first fight with Skulker.

For the first time since he'd woken up, Dib grinned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nowwww we're getting to the fun part. I'm having a little trouble with Zim's dialouge, so any suggestions would be nice.


End file.
